Meet RAPID, the student organization interwining technology and media written by Christina Kamkutis
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n fall 2018, former students at the WVU Reed College of Media Nick Tabidize and Bree McCullough wanted to introduce a creative outlet for students across campus who vested an interest in virtual reality and technology, which sparked the creation of RAPID—Reality Augmentation Production Innovation Design. “RAPID is a student organization at the WVU Reed College of Media that focuses on new, more interactive forms of storytelling in journalism, PR and advertising, like augmented and virtual reality (AR and VR),” said RAPID’s advisor, David Smith, a professor in the Reed College. “I worked with several students to create the organization. They were interested in learning more about the promises of the technology and wanted to have a space to explore and experiment. I’m always interested in pushing the boundaries of storytelling and think these platforms and mediums are the future of communication. So, I want students at the Reed College to understand how to use them.” Mark Schoenster, current vice president of RAPID, spent the summer at engineering camps in Morgantown teaching nonuniversity children about virtual and augmented reality and helping them understand how to incorporate the technology into their own field. “They’re in the engineering field, so media doesn’t really matter to them, but they can still experience it,” Schoenster said. “When you have kids running around all day at an engineering camp and they don’t want to listen anymore, you can show them a headset and all of sudden their eyes get big and they’re focused on it.” RAPID represents a piece of the future of technology as well as the current substance of media intertwined, which is why Schoenster and RAPID’s president Alex Balog stress its importance. “I think that everybody can benefit from learning the subject more, learning about its production and learning about what kind of effects it can have,” said Balog. The technology used at their meetings is becoming more
relevant as time prevails and will most likely become an aspect of people’s daily lives in countless career fields within the near future. There is an “open possibility to do pretty much whatever you want,” said Balog on his favorite part about being involved in RAPID. “There’s not really a limit, it’s not something where we have a couple ideas to work off of and can only do a limited number of things. You have the possibility to do whatever you want and to roam free.” VR and AR are used in your daily life more than you may realize, through social media filters and special headsets. It is important to start looking into this kind of technology now to have a head start in your own field—even if it does not seem relevant right now. “It’s hard to describe what these experiences are like, other than to say they’re immersive,” Smith said. “When it’s created well, you feel completely immersed and transported.” Shoenster and Balog agree that their biggest aspiration for RAPID is to first expand the organization’s wings and reach out to more of the student body. They wish to educate a larger portion of the student body about their mission and show as many people as possible the value RAPID can have on their journey going forward into a career in almost any field. “It’s the future, as cliche as it is to say,” Schoenster said. “This technology is going to become more and more relevant for Reed College students and for people in general.” 30
