Xingpeng Li won $70,000 for his proposals to the Department of Energy. | Courtesy of Xingpeng Li

A UH professor of electrical and computer engineering won government awards for two separate proposals to fix the nation’s electric grid.

Xingpeng Li, a professor of electrical and computer engineering, won $70,000 for two proposals he submitted to the Department of Energy’s Electricity Industry Technology and Practices Innovation Challenge. The challenge, which was hosted for the first time this year, was set up by the DOE to find better practices for the electric industry and solutions for growing problems with energy usage. 

“Renewable power generation isn’t completely controllable, so we need better procedures to handle the uncertainty,” Li said in a news release.

The DOE does not directly manage the electrical industry, Li said, so there’s no telling if his proposals will be put into practice. With the awarded money, he plans to hire one to two graduate students to work on his proposals. 

Li’s two proposals aim to address the uncertainty in electricity generation, both in our present grid and in the future with renewable resources like solar and wind power. 

“The amount of electricity produced by solar panels largely depends on solar radiation that cannot be perfectly forecasted and it cannot be controlled, which is the main difference between variable renewables and traditional generating resources,” Li said. 

Li’s first proposal addressed the energy management system and the issue of integrating renewable resources into a system where electricity must be “used, produced, and transferred all at the same time.” 

The abstract of the proposal covers the idea of “microgrids” that could feed into the larger grid when necessary. 

“This idea proposes a novel energy management strategy for networked microgrids so that they can operate as grid-friendly controllable and responsive loads from the perspective of bulk power systems,” the abstract of Li’s first proposal said.

The second proposal regards longer term planning of renewable’s uncertainties and the growing demand for energy. 

“The increasing deployment of renewable generation will dramatically change the system generating resources and power flow distributions in the transmission network,” the abstract of the second proposal said. 

Li’s proposal acknowledged that the aim of longer term planning meant maintaining the supply to an expanding base of energy consumers.

“Power system long-term expansion planning aims to ensure continuous power supply to consumers in a reliable, efficient and affordable way,” the abstract said. 

However, Li’s proposal also said that the current plans tend to be rigid. 

“Existing power system planning tools do not acknowledge the flexibility in transmission networks and treat transmission elements as static assets in the planning models,” the abstract said. 

Li’s proposal plans to use the flexibility of the grid to relieve some of the issues. 

“Past research efforts have demonstrated that utilizing the flexibility in the transmission network can benefit the system in various aspects such as congestion relief, reliability enhancement and facilitation of renewable grid integration,” the abstract said.

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Students can now get food delivered to more locations. | Kathryn Lenihan/The Cougar

UH Auxiliary Services this fall launched an expanded version of their food delivery program, delivering food to six locations on campus with no delivery fee.

After adding Panda Express to the program over the summer, Auxiliary Services tested and refined the app to handle the growing volume of orders.

“During the pilot period, we had up to 10 orders a day, which was good because we were testing,” said Rosie Ashley, program director of Auxiliary Services. “Now, with the full launch this fall, we’re ready for many, many more.”

Students will be able to use Cougar Cash with the app, which is integrated into the meal plans, and for the fall semester will pay no delivery fee.

“We will be launching with a no delivery fee promotion for the entire fall semester to entice and draw guests to this new program,” Ashley said.

Ashley said there will be other benefits for Boost users in Spring 2020, such as loyalty points and discounts.

The full list of restaurants delivering through the Boost App are Mondo, Panda Express, and Freshii, though students can still use the app to place pick-up orders at most of the on-campus dining options.

The delivery locations include Ezekiel W. Cullen, the Architecture Building, McElhinney Hall, the General Services Building, M.D. Anderson Library and Farish Hall.

The app is free to download and use on both Android and Apple, and students only need to register and set UH as their location when ordering.

Ashley also said that students could work for the delivery program if they desired, as well as full-time associates.

“We have a lot of great jobs for students if they want to work on campus,” Ashley said.

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Students with a valid permit can park in any lot starting Thursday at 3 p.m. through Monday at 7 a.m. every weekend. | File Photo

Parking and Transportation Services this year is letting students with valid parking permits to park at any non-gated, unrestricted lot starting Thursday at 3 p.m. through Monday at 7 a.m. every weekend.

Neil Hart, executive director of PTS, sent an email out to students explaining the program and how disabled, reserved or metered spaces will still be restricted areas.

Students will still need to display their parking permit to park in any non-gated lot, however. Cars will need to be moved to their proper lot by 7 a.m. each Monday morning, Hart said.

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The first session of the “Innovation Principles class drew a diverse class of students interested in expanding their creative and business acumen. | Trevor Nolley/The Cougar

The College of Technology this fall updated its degree programs to emphasize innovation, and introduced a new minor designed to be accessible to all UH students.

CoT is changing the name of the organizational leadership and management major and minor to technology leadership and innovation management, or TLIM, and adding new courses that reflect their program of innovation. 

“We see (innovation) as a skill set that helps you in your everyday life, as well as the company that you’re going into,” said David Crawley, a professor of practice who has taught on innovation at UH for four years. “This is really important right now as technology becomes a driving force in organizations, and it will continue to be important.” 

The change was approved this last spring by the University Undergraduate Curriculum Committee and the Texas Higher Education Coordinating Board, alongside a completely new applied innovation minor. 

Crawley sees the new program as a marriage between a business degree and a technology degree, equipping people with resources and knowledge to contribute unique ideas to the economy.

“Innovation is something that’s meaningfully unique,” Crawley said. “It’s got to mean something to somebody, whether that means they spend time or money on it, it’s got to have value.”

Brian Mehring, the TLIM program coordinator and associate professor at UH, is excited for the opportunity the degree presents, the interest shown by the industry, and the engagement with students. 

“The responses from innovation stakeholders have been overwhelmingly positive,” Mehring said. 

Stakeholders including current and new students, employers, non-profits and governmental communities, Mehring said.

One of the centrepieces of the program is the TLIM 3330 class “Innovation Principles,” which covers the fundamentals of the program and also provides students with a special certification. 

“Students who successfully complete the required Innovation Principles course will earn an industry recognized Blue Belt Certification from the Innovation Engineering Institute,” Mehring said. 

Crawley said the certification is useful not just through the class.

“The student who gets that certification, they not only get experience and tools, but they get access to a portal with functionality and support for two years,” Crawley said. “They can use the portal in their courses, in research, and beyond.” 

The portal also allows students to crowdsource, asking trained professionals across the world questions pertaining to their projects. 

The “Innovations Principles” course covers coming up with an innovation purpose, stimulating creativity, outlining the idea for others, estimating profits and costs on the fly, and best practices for enacting the idea. 

Crawley hopes that the program will give students the edge they need in the market ahead. 

“Every year there’s hundreds of thousands of young people looking for a job, and many of them have a three point something GPA,” Crawley said. “We believe the (program) will make you unique and give you that competitive advantage.”

There are already students with declared TLIM majors, as well as students transferring from the old OLS program, Mehring said. 

The TLIM major is a Bachelor of Science degree and has six new required courses from the old major and requires the “Innovation Principle”s class, while the TLIM minor has the option to complete that course. 

The applied innovation minor has only four required classes, including the TLIM 3330 course. 

“(The minor) is designed to be accessible to any UH student,” Mehring said. “Dean Ambler promoted this initiative in order to foster increased collaboration with other UH colleges and programs.”

Mehring suspects that the demand for the program from students and for TLIM graduates in the workforce will rise.

“We expect this minor to continue to become more popular for students outside the College of Technology and to remain very popular with other college majors,” Mehring said. “Students tend to be attracted to the blend of leadership, technology and innovation skills which dynamic organizations are seeking.”

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Jiselle Santos/The Cougar

Students will have a much easier time this year voting in November’s local election with Harris County allowing people to vote at polling locations on campus.

Harris County Clerk Diane Trautman recently announced that voters no longer need to report back to their precinct for election day voting, which means students will be able to vote at an on-campus polling location.

Like early voting, registered voters in Harris County can vote at any election day polling location, according to the County Clerk’s website.

In the 2016 elections, the Student Center North was Precinct 389’s polling location.

Kate Dentler, Harris County Democratic Party’s precinct 389 chair and political science junior, said Trautman also requested UH to be an early polling location.

“Before County Clerk Diane Trautman took office, the county had not instituted county-wide voting programs,” Dentler said. “Therefore, only voters registered in precinct 389 were able to vote in their precinct’s polling location on election day. Precinct 389 includes on-campus housing.”

The distinction being many students aren’t registered to vote using their on-campus address.

Jessica Hulett, Student Government Association’s director of external affairs, said the UH Recreation & Wellness Center will be the likely spot for on-campus polling, and SGA has plans to increase student voting this year, including busing students out to early polling locations.

However, with Trautman’s announcement that any voter in Harris County can vote at any polling location, students may not need to bus out through SGA if they don’t want to on election day.

Even if students can’t vote, Hulett hopes to increase their involvement with elections and educate them on ways to be engaged in the process.

“Civic engagement can be participating in activism, and canvassing for candidates, or helping with phone banks,” Hulett said. “It can even be as simple as going with your friends to vote.”

Our next mayor will be decided on Nov. 5, as well as several seats on city council.

“We’re trying to put an emphasis on the importance of voting in local elections,” Hulett said. “Local elections can have even more of an impact on their lives than presidential elections can in some ways.”

Hulett said SGA is planning a three stage approach to getting students involved in voting.

SGA is currently registering people to vote. Once the voter registration deadlines arrives 30 days before the election, they will then distribute nonpartisan information about the candidates, Hulett said.

The registration phase will go up to thirty days before the election, the deadline for signing up to vote, but SGA has already made efforts over the summer.

“So far, we’ve registered about 250 people, and they’re all incoming UH students,” Hulett said.

SGA is also planning an event for National Voter Registration Day on Sept. 24th, and they hope to have free food and live music, Hullett said. Last year 500 people showed up.

For the second step, Hullet said they usually have representatives from the League of Women Voters on campus distributing information, and someone from the County Clerk’s office that brings a simulated polling booth so people can practice ahead of time.

Thirty days before the election, SGA will begin doing tablings to distribute information about candidates and how to vote, Hulett said.

SGA also plans to bus people out to polling locations if they need it.

“Last year we had over 600 people go vote, which is insane for young people,” Hulett said.

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Mutlaq Dowaihy at a LARPing meetup in August. The club started from a humble place and grew to a large inclusive group of friends. | Trevor Nolley/The Cougar.

By the star in Lynn Eusan park, student LARPers, or Live Action Roleplayers, dressed in vibrant costumes and carrying foam weaponry step into another world of adventure and magic.

LARPing might conjure images of Dungeons and Dragons and sitting around a table, as well as exclusive nerds gate-keeping out more fair-weather fans of roleplaying. The reality of UH’s LARPing club is the opposite: friendly, charming and dressed in colorful clothes, they are eager to share the culture of their game, even inviting total beginners to practice sparring.

“The group is inclusive. They respect pronouns and they try to show everyone good sportsmanship,” said Amy Rivera, a biology sophomore who’s been LARPing for under a year at UH.

Such inclusivity blossomed from a humble place. Emil Revote, a 2019 UH graduate and founder of the group, said he started the club early in his college career simply because he wanted more people to fight.

“We started with about three people: myself, an acquaintance of mine and another person from the Cougar Village dorms. From there, I tried to expand pretty hard,” Revote said. “By the end of the year, we had maybe 11-15 people a session.”

With help from a few friends interested in seeing the community expand, Revote recruited, with the challenge of being a new group on campus.

“It was pretty difficult to grow at first,” Revote said. “We wouldn’t get a lot of attention since it was new.”

Despite that, the group has expanded to roughly 20 to 25 active LARPers, and with that growth a strong, charitable community that turns volunteering into competitions took form.

“Our Kingdom runs a lot of charity events,” Revote said. “Last year, our standing monarch wanted an Egyptian-themed reign. His service project was that anyone who volunteered at a service shelter, cats preferred as a joke, would get extra credits for a class.”

The UH LARPers last year raised over $3,000 for the Food Bank, winning an annual competition called Food Fight in the process, Revote said.

The club’s current monarch, a position analogous to a president, Sean Nanowsky, was practicing martial arts outside Cougar Village when Revote approached them with foam weapons and introduced them to LARPing.

“He asked us if we were interested in something different, and we were curious,” Nanowsky said.

Initially thinking of it as a play fight, Nanowsky was struck in the head by a spear Revote threw, which sent him sprawling, but that didn’t scare him off from the game.

“Suddenly, I’m on the ground, I’m wiping dirt off myself and wondering what just happened,” Nanowsky said. “But I thought, okay, this is a contact sport. And I felt drawn to it after that.”

Nanowsky has been running the group since May but has been involved for three years since Revote recruited him.  

“(Revote) is the person that rounded us all up and said, ‘Hey, we’re gonna kick a bunch of nerd butt, let’s do this’,” Nanowsky said.

Another world  

UH’s club, the Crossways, officially joined a larger game in 2018 called Amtgard, a LARP system focused on high fantasy in which LARPers can focus on fighting, casting spells, crafting gear and even skills like expanding the community or leadership.

“When we volunteer, it’s for LARPing events usually, as cooks, game runners, security and clean-up volunteers,” Revote said. “Volunteerism keeps the game going smoother, so a lot of us have a good selection of skills because of that.”

Amtgard spans the United States and even has groups in Europe, and it is separated into Kingdoms, which contain the smaller groups like UH’s own Crossways.

Crossways is officially under the Kingdom of the Wetlands, which covers parts of Texas and Louisiana and has roughly 300-400 members, Revote said.

The LARPers of the Crossways all have personas and classes within the game that they step into when they come to play.

Amtgard employs an “order system,” which gives ranks based on what roles someone pursues, Revote said.

“Orders are given based on your proficiency in a facet of the community,” Revote said. “A good service person would be a Rose, whereas a leader would be a Lion.”

The most coveted prize, Revote said, is the maximum rank of Warrior.

“Most people on their tenth Warrior (rank) are martial artists, athletes and other extremely fit and active fighters who care about constant improvement,” Revote said. “That sort of thing takes a decade or two of constant practice.”

The sport of fighting is the main draw for many playing Amtgard, evidenced by the original game that the club played, called Dagorhir, focused more on fighting than roleplaying.

Cultivating the future

Not satisfied with where they are now, Crossways has plans for the first weeks of school and beyond.

“We’re planning a welcome back week, and we’re potentially going to different parks, or we might stay (at UH), but we’re going to fight for a whole week straight,” Nanowsky said. “Just to see who’s interested and who wants to come out.”

The group is currently wanting to host an event called Dragonmaster at UH on Oct. 5, where according to Nanowsky the “best of the best” in the Houston area meet at one location and three judges crown the best creator of the reign.

The game rewards people who invest in different skills, giving them ranks in pathways like fighting and crafting.

Nanowsky loves the variety of skills and roles in the game and, above that, loves that he has an avenue for being an entertainer.

“I used to be a music major when I was a UH student,” Nanowsky said. “The last event, I played my guitar, and it was me and 20 other people. It was the best music. We sang all night until the sun came up.”

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While the field for the 2019 Houston mayoral race isn’t set yet, there are a slew of candidates already campaigning. | Courtesy of Wikimedia Commons

Houston’s city level elections will take place on Nov. 5 this year, and already there are a slew of mayoral candidates who have entered the race.

Incumbent Mayor Sylvester Turner has many challengers and some are pouring in big money to unseat him, including current Houston City Councilman Dwight Boykins, former city Councilwoman Sue Lovell, former Mayor of Kemah and Turner’s perpetual rival Bill King, and famous trial lawyer Tony Buzbee. The issues of the current race revolve around City Hall’s finances, Houston’s preparedness for another storm like Harvey, and the pay parity conflict between City Hall and the firefighter’s union.

While the field is currently still open (candidates have until August 19th to file to get on the ballot) some of the candidates have already started campaigning.

The Players in the Mayoral Race

Sylvester Turner (incumbent) 

Current Houston Mayor Sylvester Turner is a UH alumnus seeking a second term as a nonpartisan candidate.

Turner served as the Democratic representative for Texas House District 139 from 1989 to 2016.

His platform includes expanding METRO and Houston’s business relationships

Turner’s administration saw Houston through Hurricane Harvey, and his coordination of the city’s response earned him praise.

Turner has faced criticism for his stance on the Houston Professional Fire Fighters Association’s push for pay parity.

Turner was publicly opposed to Prop B, a bill which pushed for pay parity between firefighters and police officers, but despite his opposition, the bill passed, and in response Turner announced layoffs and demotions in the fire department, trying to keep costs down.

However, Prop B was recently ruled unconstitutional, preventing both the planned lay offs and firefighter raises.

Dwight Boykins

City District D’s representative Dwight Boykins runs as another nonpartisan candidate, platforming on “courage and compassion,” and promising to be an ally to the firefighters in the wake of the pay parity crisis.

Boykins is running on a platform of streamlining the city budget, fast-tracking Harvey’s recovery, healthcare reform for city employees, and improving contracting opportunities for small businesses.

Boykins recently faced criticism over his address to students at a “youth advocacy summit” where he allegedly advised the students to “keep their legs closed.” Boykins released a statement on Facebook that said his only aim was to lay “a positive path forward for our youth.”

Bill King

Bill King is a former mayor of Kemah, who ran in the Houston mayoral election against Turner in 2015, losing out in the runoff. While generally leaning to the right, King is running as a nonpartisan candidate as well on a platform of “cleaning up City Hall.”

King plans to address Houston’s flooding problem by putting funds toward draining infrastructure and implementing “common sense” regulations.

King also wants to expand the police department and waste departments, reform City Hall’s budgeting and make the Office of Inspector General independent from the mayor.

King has largely been critical of Turner’s administration, accusing the mayor of engaging in “pay to play” tactics and criticizing Turner’s handling of Prop B.

Tony Buzbee

UH alumnus and a wealthy attorney Tony Buzbee is running also as a nonpartisan candidate and is funding his own campaign. He has promised to donate his mayoral salary to a random voter every year.

Buzbee’s platform is primarily built upon fighting “corruption” in City Hall and “following the will of the voters” on Prop B, but also addresses the rising crime by wanting HPD to adapt to a Comparable Statistics style of policing — where police place an emphasis on analyzing crime data.

According to Buzbee’s campaign website, Compstat policing is built on four principles: accurate and timely information, rapid deployment of coordinated forces, legal but effective tactics, and relentless assessment and follow up.

Buzbee is famous for defending former Governor Rick Perry when Perry was indicted for two felony accounts alleging abuse of power.

He has also criticized Turner for pay-to-play issues, bringing manure to a press conference to compare it to a $6.7 million awarded to his former law firm.

Buzbee ran as a Democrat for a Texas House seat in 2002, but he has donated to both Democrats and Republicans throughout his life.

Sue Lovell

Former City Councilwoman Sue Lovell, who served for three terms from 2006 to 2012, is running on the experience of her tenure as the chair of the city transportation committee.

Lovell also emphasized her LGBTQ+ rights advocacy and her desire to be an ally to the firefighters, siding with the union during the Prop B dispute against Turner.

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The in development Energy Master Plan seeks to update our infrastructure and save money | Trevor Nolley/The Cougar

The University of Houston has begun an “energy master plan” to overhaul its aging power equipment servicing campus buildings, according to officials from facilities.

When last month’s outages disrupted campus operations multiple times Jim McShan, UH senior vice president and senior vice chancellor, sent out an email to all students and faculty apologizing for the power failures. At the end of that email he mentioned the energy master plan, which was being implemented to prevent such failures in the future.

“The University has already begun the process of initiating an energy master plan to address older equipment, ensure sustainability of service, accommodate our vast growth, and to identify future energy and cost savings,” McShan said in his email.

David Oliver, associate vice chancellor/associate vice president of facilities, said the plan includes an infrastructure assessment that will identify components of UH’s power system that need replacement, and work, which will be performed in phases based on age and condition of the components.

“The energy master plan entails performing an assessment of the existing infrastructure and making recommendations to achieve the capacity and reliability levels required to meet future campus growth,” said.

The University began the formal Energy Master plan process in 2018, Oliver said

Outages and Research

“The infrastructure currently in place is robust and has served well over the years,” Oliver said.  “However, we also recognize that aging components could cause problems with the performance.”

Sudden failures are particularly harmful to sensitive research equipment. UH researchers expressed frustration for the constant outages and said the University has had issues keeping the power on consistently.

“Many research instruments cannot be shut off abruptly without a long recovery period after power is restored, and for some instruments, there is permanent damage,” said David Hoffman, department chair and professor of chemistry, in the article.

McShan acknowledged the damage the outages might have done in his campus wide email, urging researchers to send documentation to his office for compensation.

Savings

Oliver said that Facilities is always searching for opportunities to save energy for the University, which would help reduce UH’s carbon footprint and resiliency to power failures.

“The University recently completed the Cougar Substation upgrades, which added two primary power circuits to the electrical system,” Oliver said. “This is not only increasing the capacity of the electrical grid, it is strategically procuring energy directly from the open market, which have resulted in cost savings.”

UH’s energy usage in kilowatt hours has mostly increased since 2013, from 22,970,865 kWh in September 2013 to 28,429,189 kWh in September 2018, according to data obtained from an open records request.

However, the rate per kWh has decreased in that same time period, from $0.074 per kWh in September 2013 to $0.053 in September 2018, meaning UH spent around $200,000 less on electricity comparing 2013 to 2018.

The current target date for the energy master plan’s completion is September 2020, next year.

“The scope of work is in development at this time,” Oliver said.

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A few different upperclassmen spoke to The Cougar about the places they enjoyed studying at throughout their college careers, so they could pass on some of that experience to freshmen.

Whether you are just taking casual notes for a class, or need to have an intense study session for a final, these are some good places to study on your own.

“I study in the math department building on the sixth floor, because the teachers are nearby and they can help you,” said math senior Maria Ludert.

Another popular place to study is the library. There’s plenty of space, and groups or individuals can check out their own private rooms.

Psychology junior Paolo Gomez said he prefers to study in the language commons at Agnes Arnold, because there’s so few people there.

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One of the non-invasive caps that Eric Todd had on his desk. The cap lets users control lights and sounds by measuring electrical activity in the brain.  | Trevor Nolley/The Cougar

On the fourth floor of Engineering 2, a user can put on a cap and control 16 warbling tones and shifting, illuminating architecture with their brain. A program converts electrical signals in the brain into a technicolor show throughout the laboratory. 

Electrical engineering post-baccalaureate Eric Todd, who seeks to find the intersection of art and science while researching in the Non-Invasive Brain Machine Interface Laboratory.

The laboratory is headed by neuroscience professor Jose Luis Contreras-Vidal.

Todd’s current major project is a kinetic sculpture installation, the aforementioned alien-brain-technicolor show, based on principles of both neuroscience and art. 

“The idea is capturing the essence of a person, what makes up who we are,” Todd said. “Is it these signals? We see people have parts of their brain damaged and become different people. This is about our identity and who we are.” 

The art installation uses acrylic tiles embedded in the ceiling alongside computers —three of the most powerful computers in the lab, Todd said — to immerse the viewer in the lights and sounds produced by measuring their EEG. 

EEG, which is short for electroencephalography, is a non-invasive way to read the electrical activity in the brain from the outside of the scalp.

“The installation takes EEG as its input, and we do signal processing on that for our best assumption on what’s happening in someone’s brain based on current science,” Todd said. “I look at different regions in the brain to create a control for different aspects of the installation.” 

There are three parts to the installation: the panels on the ceiling are motorized, driven by the brain’s motor cortex information, 640 LED lights within the panels produce an animation that shifts in color in response to the occipital lobe, the brain’s visual processing center, and the frontal cortex, where conscious thought occurs, and four oscillators connected to electrodes reading signals all over the brain.

“I am a visual artist, but I’m also an engineering student,” Todd said. “This lab mostly does brain signal processing, but another part of the focus of the lab is the study of creativity.” 

The idea of processing EEG signals is useful for Todd’s work but also for research into medical advancements. 

“One facet of the lab is a biomedical facet, so the lab does work in robotics, especially prosthetics you can control with the mind,” Todd said 

The electrical engineering post-bacc brought up the work of one of his colleagues in the lab, Jesus G. Cruz-Garza, a Ph.D. student studying the nature of creativity who helped work on the signal processing aspect of the art installation, Todd said.

“We have this experiment with three artists who worked on an ‘Exquisite Corpse,’” Todd said.

Exquisite Corpse is a modernist art game where one artist would draw an entire piece of art, cover up the piece except for a tiny portion, and then have someone else make a new drawing based off the old one, and they would do the same, passing the art onto new artists until they had a completed collaboration. 

“It’s sort of a blind improv collaboration,” Todd said. “But while the artists did these we recorded EEG. We’ve done these studies with artists, writers, chefs, just a variety of different people.” 

Todd, who already possesses a degree in theatre and creative writing, returned to UH to study electrical engineering as he’d made interactive art using technology, with the help of electrical and software engineers. 

“In my past work, I think about space as a primary medium for art making. Art doesn’t exist outside of its environment,” Todd said. “If I think about a painting, it will have a different experience in different spaces for different viewers.” 

For Todd, the merger of science and art made perfect sense. 

“Engineering is very similar to art and creative work. Both have design choices and problem solving. In the past, when I collaborated with engineers, it was a very natural thing since we had such similar processes,” Todd said. 

One future development Todd hopes for is reading archived EEG data to get a snapshot of their mind from when it was recorded. 

“I want to use it as a playback device, so you can walk into a moment in someone’s life,” Todd said. 

An official opening for the installation may be in the works. Todd said.

“We’re doing a soft open, it’s by appointment, but I’m willing for anyone to come in and see it in its current state,” Todd said. “I want to get through the summer and see where we are about the possibility of expansion.” 

Appointments can be made through Todd’s email, eamtodd@gmail.com

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