Texas State University to feature student work at Innovation Lab

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Students at Texas State are doing great things. This Saturday, March 12 at SXSW Interactive, Texas State University will showcase a select group of student inventors and innovators at the Texas State Innovation Lab and Reception. Students will get the chance to rub elbows with industry leaders in tech and share their work with potential employers, donors and collaborators.

Dillon Lohr, an undergraduate in Computer Science, is excited for the chance to attend SXSW. Lohr will be demonstrating a program that uses eye movement tracking to replace passwords as a secure biometric authentication.

“I’m a little nervous for all of the industry people that will see the project, but excited as well. I’ve heard about some other work people are doing with facial recognition and I’m looking forward to making professional connections and possibly collaborating with companies,” said Lohr.

The variety of departments and projects to be represented at the Innovation Lab is reflective of the broad appeal of the Interactive conference. From biometric authentication to virtual reality to a shopping app, a broad range of disciplines will be represented. Emily Willis is a student member of one team that created a fashion merchandising app for Kohl’s. The app was designed to attract millennials to their stores and includes a virtual fitting room. 

“As a team, we hope to gain insight into the technological aspects of the retail industry by attending SXSW,” said Willis.

As we’ve seen in SXTXState panel previews, virtual reality is going to be a popular topic at SXSW this year, and the Innovation Lab is no exception. David Morley, graduate student in communication design, has been working for a year and a half now on a virtual reality project to get people to stop texting and driving. The immersive experience simulates a car crash when the subject looks at their phone screen.

Screen Shot 2016-03-11 at 12.35.53 AM“I was drawn to the idea of using tech that would otherwise distract you from reality to return to your reality,” said Morley. At SXSW, Morley hopes to find corporate sponsors that can help him put the technology into defensive driving programs and community centers.

Another student team working on water conservation technology also hopes to make professional connections. Seniors Alex Diaz, Anthony Goodson, Ana Amaro and Haleigh Walker have been working with SENSCO Solutions to improve water leak detection technology for the City of San Marcos. The team will demonstrate their water leak detection invention which uses audio frequencies at the Innovation Lab. 

“Primarily we’d like to showcase this project and put it out there so it can get more momentum. Someone may pay attention to us. We don’t necessarily have the resources to take this 100% of the way, but if we make that connection we could potentially get the funding and resources,” said Diaz. 

See a full list of presenting and attending teams below, including SXTXState.

Presenting Teams
  • aRPM Instruments
  • Biometric Authentication and Fatigue Detection Using Eye Movements
  • Fashion Merchandising: Attracting Millennials through Innovative Technology
  • Networked Weather Station
  • Robotic GPS Mapper and Water Leak Detector Sonic Spectogram
  • Texas Education Atlas
  • Virtual Reality as a Deterrent for Smartphone Usage While Driving
Mobile Teams
  • Design, Develop, Date – Algorithm for Dating
  • SXTXState
Spotlight Teams
  • CDMA-based RFID Inventory System
  • Water Treatment Technology
  • UmbralGroup

When and where:

Saturday, March 12
6 – 8 p.m.
Hilton Austin – 500 E 4th St. / 6th Floor Pre-function Area

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