Boiler Gold Rush Entertainment Challenge

Now accepting proposals for the 2025 Boiler Gold Rush Entertainment Challenge!

The Fusion Studio for Entertainment and Engineering (FSEE) in collaboration with Orientation Programs is pleased to announce the call for proposals for the Boiler Gold Rush 2025 Entertainment Challenge. This call for proposals offers an opportunity to foster novel pedagogy, research, and applied science at the nexus of engineering and entertainment by offering an exploratory pilot seed grant of $3,000 to a select group of accepted proposals.

Faculty with an interest in demonstrating their interactive work within the context of the annual Boiler Gold Rush student event are encouraged to submit a proposal for consideration.

Please note that much of the work for these projects will be completed during the summer. Ideation and research will begin in the Spring semester. The operational aspects will pick up in late Spring and continue intensely throughout the summer. Please take this timeline into consideration when submitting a proposal. We also encourage faculty to be actively involved and participate throughout the duration of the project alongside any students involved.

The FSEE invites all interested to submit a 1 page abstract and budget outlining their work and the potential for embedding their work into the 2025 BGR event as a display/interactive site for student spectators and/or participants. The estimated budget should explain how the grant funding will likely be applied to their pilot work for BGR. Preference will be given to proposals that offer elaboration on how such a pilot might scale into a larger spectacle/event/pedagogical frame, including what additional funding would be required to support such a scaling effort. Abstracts should be no longer than 500 words and include the proposal title, list of involved faculty (and course numbers if appropriate) with contact information for each individual.

The Boiler Gold Rush (BGR) Entertainment Challenge, in collaboration with Orientation Programs and supported in part by the Provost’s Office, provides mini-grant seed support for faculty or students whose research efforts lend themselves toward the creation of interactive/performative technology installations on campus during Boiler Gold Rush, Purdue’s week-long new-student orientation event. Grants of up to $3,000 are offered each year to select proposals that integrate technology, art, and performance in novel ways, with preference given to proposals that offer the possibility of scaling to a larger spectacle, event or pedagogical framework.

BGR Entertainment Challenge projects are opportunities for faculty and students to explore engaging ways of sharing their research with the university campus, in particular to students new to Purdue. During the Boiler Gold Rush experience, new students have opportunities to interact with BGR Entertainment Challenge projects, learning more about the research behind them and perhaps discovering novel ways to combine their multiple interests in their studies at Purdue, from dance and computer programming, neuroscience and projections design, or Pokémon and animal science.

Proposals for BGR Entertainment Challenge projects are accepted in the Fall semester each year. Selected projects are awarded funding in the following January and are expected to be completed for installation during the Boiler Gold Rush in the following August.

For more information about the BGR Entertainment Challenge, email fusion-studio@purdue.edu.