On one side of campus, visitors to the Imagine RIT: Creativity and Innovation Festival became game show hosts. On the other side, guests’ blood-oxygen level readings were measured using a redesigned pulse oximeter. That’s just a sampling of what thousands of people experienced on April 26. See photos from Saturday's Imagine RIT “Imagine RIT is an incredible opportunity for our students, faculty, and staff to showcase their creativity and forward-thinking innovation,” said Lisa Stein, director of Imagine RIT. “Each year, the festival highlights groundbreaking work in fields like artificial intelligence, computing, healthcare, and the arts—proving again how the RIT community leads with bold ideas and a hands-on approach to turning vision into reality.” This year, a record 434 exhibits were on display across the entire campus. Real-world applications As part of a collaborative capstone project with The Strong National Museum of Play, fourth-year new media design students worked alongside students from RIT’s new media interactive development program to create game prototypes inspired by old-school game shows. The goal of the collaboration, on the first floor of College of Art and Design’s Booth Hall, was for students to create prototypes of potential games for an upcoming exhibit, Beyond the Buzzer: Game Shows in America, set to open at The Strong Museum in 2026. The prototypes were showcased in six interactive Imagine RIT exhibits: Eye on the Prize; Path Pursuit; Overboard; Race to Riches; Battle of the Buzzers; and Ruin the Show. ‌ Scott Hamilton Fourth-year new media design student Kamy Bitely shows a visitor how to play Path Pursuit. The game prototype, resulting from a capstone collaboration with The Strong National Museum of Play, challenges two players to cooperate and move in-sync to complete the virtual obstacle course. While it’s not guaranteed that all the games will make it to the final museum exhibit, each prototype helped the museum team research and test the types of experiences visitors might enjoy. Alexis Mildren, from Mardela Springs, Md., worked with a team of nine other students to create Eye on the Prize, an innovation of the classic Simon memory game. She said testing the game with the massive audience at Imagine RIT was a golden opportunity. “The museum said our age range when designing the game was seven to 77. Trying to build something that little kids would enjoy, and older generations would find some nostalgia in, was a big challenge,” said Mildren. “Having the community support and play our game has really proven that we’ve succeeded.” Improving lives Mechanical engineering students in the Multidisciplinary Senior Design program redesigned a pulse oximeter to improve diagnosis. Their exhibit was in Institute Hall. Melanin, the chemical that gives skin its varied tones, affects oxygen readings. The students’ design assesses not only the oxygen levels but corrects for the impact of melanin. ‌ Traci Westcott Mechanical engineering student Isabella Cagno, left, demonstrates a pulse oximeter that uses wavelengths of light to assess a patient’s pigmentation. They integrated varied wavelengths of light into a second finger clamp that is connected to the Graphical User Interface (GUI), which collects blood oxygen content, blood pressure, and the important light measurements for the color sensor they designed. The combined data gives more accurate results, said Gianna Ippolito.  “We did not start to notice this until COVID,” said Ippolito, a fifth-year student from Rochester who transferred from Monroe Community College. “We found that it’s important to test a product that relies on light with a diverse set of testers. It is not often something that was considered until it is happening.” The students’ new prototype will be used on patients in the fall at RIT’s medical partner, Rochester Regional Health. Building a robot from scratch At the center of campus, CatBot, a quadruped robot designed in the spirit of Boston Dynamics’ Spot robot dog, was one of 30 exhibits in the SHED. Members of the Multi-Disciplinary Robotics Club worked on the design of the robot over four years. Different parts of the robot were shown in previous Imagine RIT festivals, but this is the first public unveiling of the robot. ‌ Carlos Ortiz Members of the Multi-Disciplinary Robotics Club, from left, fifth-year software engineering major Cameron Robinson, second-year mechanical engineering major Sophia Pagsanjan, and third-year mechatronics engineering technology major Rudy Rodriguez move CatBot, a quadruped robot. Cameron Robinson, a fifth-year software engineering and English double major and club president, has seen CatBot from its genesis. It started as an idea by a fellow student interested in soft robotics, a subfield of robotics that focuses on using flexible, deformable materials, an upgrade from the traditional, rigid nature of robots. This robot, while not fully mobile, is able to show off full walking motions. “These robots are like our babies,” Robinson said. “We love building and working with these robots from scratch, and it’s great to see the progress over the years. It’s all part of the human experience.” “My classes are often very theoretical,” added second-year mechanical engineering major Sophia Pagsanjan. “Making robots like CatBot is thrilling because you’re putting everything you’re learning in the classroom into action. I can see the results of my work.” CatBot is the club’s newest legacy robot, which includes Imagine RIT favorites like CouchBot, a comfortable remote-controlled modular loveseat, a small robot which can wave back to spectators, and a battle bot arena with handheld robot vehicles. Imagine RIT: Creativity and Innovation Festival returns on April 25, 2026.

Alumnus and serial entrepreneur Sean Petterson debuted his injury prevention invention StrongArm at Imagine RIT: Creativity and Innovation Festival when he was a student in 2013. He returned to campus on April 25 as a featured presenter at the Futurists Symposium, an insider’s look into the future of technology, the arts, and design.  Joining Petterson ’13 (industrial design), co-founder and CEO of Supercede, was Tonia Bledsoe ’96 (management information systems), founder of Bledsoe Legacy and co-founder of EmpowerAI Collective; Josh Cavalier ’92 (medical illustration), a Learning & Development leader and founder of JoshCavalier.ai; and Khalid Al-Kofahi ’94 (computer engineering), a technology executive, scientist, and engineer specializing in AI-powered solutions. The event was hosted by RIT President David Munson and moderated by WXXI Connections host Evan Dawson. During his presentation, Petterson talked about the foundational tools he acquired at RIT that helped him transition into his current role developing sustainable construction products. He believes that communication is at the core of industry expertise. “For me, design work is about 5 percent of what I do, and everything else that I need to do to support this work takes 95 percent.” Much of the symposium revolved around the theme of artificial intelligence. Bledsoe’s passion lies in making technology accessible to marginalized communities to help them create ideas and build businesses using AI. “I’m always striving to meet the challenge of how creative we can be together,” she said. “For me, the future lives in creative collisions. Our goal should be to become a partner in realizing how we can expand possibilities in areas such as architecture, games, and science.” Al-Kofahi, who is a senior vice president and head of the AI Center of Excellence at Fidelity, believes that AI will soon be infused in all areas. “I don’t think you can build a career that is insulated from AI,” he said. Cavalier encouraged the students in the audience to be the experts the world wants them to be. “We have the DNA here at RIT; the foundations are all right here. I’m excited to see the safe spaces where students, faculty, and staff can come together to have deep conversations about AI. The cross-pollination of ideas is one of the ways that we will solve some of the world’s problems.”