Storrs Campus
Explore Storrs Campus Life
Nestled in the heart of Connecticut, UConn Storrs offers students a vibrant and immersive university town experience. As the university’s main campus, Storrs is home to art and entertainment venues like the Jorgensen Center for the Performing Arts, Connecticut Repertory Theatre, and the William Benton Museum of Art. With over 100 Digital Media & Design majors, Storrs provides a thriving creative environment where students can access state-of-the-art facilities within the Bishop Center, all just within walking distance from the restaurants and shops of Downtown Storrs. Students can also join DMD-led clubs like the Film Club, Computer Graphics Club, and Gaming Club, alongside hundreds of student organizations all across campus. For those living on campus, residential halls, suites, and apartments offer a variety of housing options, all within walking distance.
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Storrs Facilities
In the Digital Media & Design Department, we believe that for our students to succeed in their future careers, they should have access to and experience with industry-standard tools. On the Storrs campus, in Bishop Center, we host newly renovated, state-of-the-art facilities, including a Film Production Studio, Motion Capture Studio, VR / Gaming Studio, Cintiq Computer Lab, Social Media Analytics Command Center, Sound Editing Suite, Physical Computing Space, and the Digital Experience (DX) Lab.
The Cintiq Lab, located in the Bishop Center basement, features 14 high-powered PC workstations with 22” Wacom Cintiq interactive pen displays. Each machine is loaded with the Adobe Creative Suite, Autodesk Maya, Unity3D, and a full suite of Red Giant plugins for Adobe Premiere and After Effects. With Intel i7 processors, Nvidia 1070 graphics cards, and 32MB RAM, these systems are capable of video editing, motion graphics, particle generation, 3D modeling and animation, game development, and VR. The Cintiq Lab hosts several DMD classes and serves as a 24-hour computer lab for students enrolled in advanced courses.
In addition to specialized facilities, DMD offers a variety of classrooms and conference rooms for teaching, collaboration, and client meetings. Spaces range from the largest classroom, 146, which seats 50, to smaller conference rooms for meetings of six. Most rooms are equipped with a teaching station, a large monitor and/or projector, whiteboards for brainstorming, and bulletin boards for displaying printed work. Wifi is available throughout the building to support student and faculty needs.
The Collaboration Studio (006), located in the Bishop Center basement, is the Motion Design & Animation classroom. With modular seating for 24 students, the room features state-of-the-art audiovisual equipment, including six 65” 4K Sony Bravia monitors for high-detail, true-color viewing, a laser projector, a 10-foot projection screen, and a high-end instructor PC.
The Digital Experience (DX) Lab explores the cutting edge of digital experience design, focusing on emerging or under-explored technologies and methodologies. Through project-based work and sponsored research, the DX Lab pushes the boundaries of user experience design while producing innovative software products, internet-connected devices, and best practices in interactive design.
The DMD Graduate Studio provides a coworking environment for GA/TA-funded graduate students, featuring eight individual workstations, a printer, and a refrigerator. Graduate students have 24-hour access to the space.
The Film Production Studio is a 770-square-foot professional space featuring a full lighting grid and a 20-foot-wide by 12-foot-tall green screen wall. Used for classes and projects in Digital Film/Video Production and Motion Design & Animation, as well as faculty-led research, the studio is equipped with professional DMX-controlled lighting systems, a GlideCam camera crane jib with motorized camera head, a Wally Dolly camera dolly track, and various filmmaking accessories. Sandbags, film flats, and multiple backdrop options allow for versatile set design, and students working within the studio have access to the DMD Imagination Station equipment.
Through the Imagination Station, students can check out cutting-edge equipment to support their work. Available gear includes 4K video camcorders, Canon DSLR cameras and lenses, action cameras, 3D mapping cameras, LED and conventional light kits, tripods, portable audio recorders, microphones, and more. The lab is open 25-30 hours per week for convenient access.
The Installation Workroom / Flexspace is a windowless room designed for graduate and senior students working on final projects such as video installations, projection mapping, and interactive experiences. Students can reserve the space for extended periods to install, test, and document their artworks in preparation for exhibitions at the Jorgensen Gallery, the Benton Museum of Art, and other venues.
The 675-square-foot black box Motion Capture Studio features a ceiling-mounted grid with 18 OptiTrack motion capture cameras from NaturalPoint. The system captures the full-body movements of up to two actors simultaneously as 3D data, supporting animation, virtual reality, game design, and movement science. Students in the 3D Animation and Game Design tracks take classes in the studio, which is also available for faculty-led research and serves as a temporary exhibition space for projection mapping artworks.
The Physical Computing Space serves as the home for DMD makers. Equipped with soldering stations, 3D printing stations, and multiple microcontrollers, the lab provides access to Arduino microcontrollers, Raspberry Pi computers, breadboards, and all the wiring, buttons, sensors, and switches needed for creative projects. The lab hosts courses like Disruptive Technologies (DMD 4536) and Wearable Electronics & Interactive Objects (DMD 3420), as well as faculty-led research projects.
Through the Social Media Analytics Command Center (SMACC), students gain hands-on experience analyzing both historical and live insights for clients' brands. With five large screens displaying various social media listening and research platforms alongside live broadcast cable feeds, SMACC enables the study of global digital conversations using TalkWalker and other tools. Students learn to research political and human events, protect brand images, track campaigns, monitor crises, and follow cultural events in real time. Social media analytics is a rapidly growing industry, and DMD students graduate with cutting-edge skills thanks to this innovative center.
The Sound Studio, located on the second floor of the Bishop Center, is equipped with a high-end PC loaded with Ableton Live 10 Suite, the Adobe Creative Suite, the Komplete 6 digital instrument suite from Native Instruments, and additional sound editing software. The studio features a voice-over booth, Adam professional studio speakers with a subwoofer, professional-grade microphones, a digital keyboard, and multiple guitars. The entire space is lined with sound-dampening foam for high-quality recordings.
The Telepresence e-Classroom (136) is a Linked Classroom featuring Cisco technology that enables real-time Telepresence between the Stamford campus’ 3.12 classroom and Bishop Center 136 in Storrs. Autofocusing cameras detect and display the speaker in the opposite campus’ classroom, while a state-of-the-art laser projector, 10-foot projection screen, stereo speakers, microphones, and a high-end instructor PC create an immersive learning environment. The room seats 24 students on modular furniture and includes two large dry-erase boards and a 24-foot magnetic metal display wall for organizing and displaying printed work.
The VR / Gaming Studio is a full-sized gaming play space and lab dedicated to interactive experiences and applications for virtual and mixed reality software. The space is equipped with a VR-ready PC, three HTC Vive headsets, two Oculus Rift headsets, two Leap Motion hand controllers, and Arduinos that connect via plugin to the Unity3D development environment. A user research booth, complete with cameras, provides students access to modern consoles, a digital game archive for research, and space for conducting user tests.