The Class

For those who don't know, the rapid prototyping class is a class you take in the first semester of the EAE graduate program. Since I'm going part time, I'm taking it in my 3rd year. It consists of all the students in the cohort, including producers, artists, tech artists, and engineers.

The cohort I'm currently taking the class with is cohort 5. I started school with cohort 3, the group that made Cyberheist, and Vynil, but they've graduated.

In our rapid prototyping class with cohort 5, there are a about 50 students. A huge class to fit in the first year studio at the U.

The class is team taught by Bob Kessler and Roger Altizer, 2 of the founding faculty members of the EAE program .

Bob Kessler

Roger Altizer

In the sixteen week class we will create 4 different prototypes. For each prototype we divide into small teams of 5 - 6 people consisting of engineers, producers, artists, and tech artists. We're given the parameters for each of our prototypes by our professors. They give us the rules, the restrictions, the goals, and the tech we are to use. We then have 4 weeks to create the prototype, pitching the prototype at various stages during it's development, iterating as fast as we can to get the best prototype possible.

For each of these prototypes we'll use different game engines, and usually use the agile system of development. the class is very much about the prototype, while Bob and Roger instruct and give feedback, the nature of the class is very much a development class. Making prototypes is what we do.