About
Mission
EPIC is an on-going project facilitated by Kendall College of Art and Design of Ferris State University faculty. It aims to:
- Provide collaborative, service and career-prep oriented projects for KCAD students where they can create digital and physical products directly with content, education, and media professionals in a professional environment.
- Explore, create and test new concepts for educational and informational media aimed at increasing the engagement, retention, understanding and synthesis of knowledge.
- Produce and distribute free (EPIC) media that can compete with popular culture while providing legitimate curriculum that aids teachers in creating engaging classrooms.
- Produce and distribute free (EPIC) media that can support community initiatives by moving people beyond reaction to action.
- Explore educational and community technology concepts that reference future technologies on the immediate horizon.
Testimonials
Melissa Boverhoff, KCAD student
“Working on Survive Global Climate change gave me my first glimpse at what it might be like to work on a project for a client in the atmosphere of a media creation company. My classmates and I were given “job titles” and specific tasks to complete; this required teamwork and collaboration. This experience was one of the highlights of my college career. Survive Global Climate Change was particularly rewarding because I was able to see this project go from ideas and storyboards to an app available for download on Android and Apple.”
Brenda Snell, KCAD student
“Understanding Detroit taught me how to work as a team with a big group of people. We all had different skills, and we had to delegate who did what in order to make this awesome project come together!”
Ben Georgoff, KCAD Student
“Working on the Infinity Mode project was an excellent way to explore the expanding cross-disciplinary, collaborative, landscape of interactive experience. The opportunity to leverage design process and technical skills with digital, industrial, and collaborative disciplines lead to invaluable insights and a rhythm of creative proportions. I am glad I accepted the invitation to partake in the productive episodic intellectual jazz sessions responsible for forming Infinity Mode’s conceptual architecture.”
Susan Bonner, KCAD Professor
“Creating interactive stories about the loss of animal diversity in our world seemed important at first. This leveled up when we interacted with the Middle School Team, as we were able to see that emotional connection to an animal could be real through presenting science facts in an entertaining way. Once we started animating the stories of potential extinction, we could see the students connect to the science content in a way that related to their own lives.”
Chris Brown, Digital Concierge
“Collaborating with the Digital Media students at KCAD to build entertaining educational materials has been a very rewarding experience. I am constantly impressed with the talent presented by the students through their illustration, animation and motion graphics skill sets. It’s been really fun to see some of our engaging learning tools for the digital generation come together and get published to the app stores!”
Erin Koren, Museum Educator
The Old Streets Adventure has received great teacher/student feedback. Mostly, in regards to how engaging and fun and memorable it is. It’s been a stand-out experience of the whole week for our Immerse students.
Katie Bush, Teacher: KHPS
“My 7th & 8th Grade Science students had a fabulous experience working with Kendall’s EPIC program. We had the opportunity to work as content experts in helping to create an app-based learning experience around Global Climate Change. Students were able to work directly with Kendall students here at the middle school as well as traveling to Kendall’s campus downtown. The real life application of Science content coupled with the cool factor of designing apps gave my students the motivation to work harder than ever!”
Sandon Newton, Protege Games
“The Journey to Mars project has been an incredible learning experience for grade school kids from Innocademy Charter School in Zeeland Michigan. The project led by Professor William Fischer and his creative team of students from Kendall College of Art and Design collaborated with school kids from Innocademy Charter School and game designers from Protege Game Studios to push the boundaries of what an interactive school field trip could be without ever actually leaving the school. Using near future technology the project team has reinvisioned what this field trip could be.”
Cailin Bates, student
I have decided to continue my education and work towards a degree that allows me to pursue design and the environment. I am looking to apply to the University of Michigan for Landscape Architecture and Sustainability. I want to thank you for helping to build my skills as it related to what I wanted to try and pursue in the future. The Sensiware project is a big reason I started to pay attention to inclusion practices and how they affect everyone.
Leadership
These are the faculty at Kendall College of Art and Design of Ferris State University that lead the EPIC Project
- Bill Fischer: Founder/Producer/Instructor
- Susan Bonner: Producer/Instructor
- Chris Brown: Instructor
- Mike Dollar: Instructor
Credits
Website design by KCAD professor Bill Fischer with collaboration provided by students:
- John Ladebauche: Site Development
- Colin Winchell: Animation
- Sarah Puett: Animation
- Jon Alderink: Illustration
- Jacob Pryor: Imaging
- Brenda Snell: Branding
