Tufts students Sam Poliquin, A14, and Ben Feuerstein, A14, recently wrote, produced, and directed a short original film called The Man Who Made Music. The story takes place in a world where all songs and artists are poets, and therefore all “lyrics” are simply read out loud over the radio like a poem. A recently fired radio host soon discovers that adding sound to the lyrics yields a new and exciting result – music.

According to Poliquin, the film was a final project for the Ex-College class Making Movies and took approximately four weeks to make. In terms of inspiration, Poliquin wrote;

I took the idea of a world with no music and ran with it, taking more influence from one of my favorite movies, the “Invention of Lying.”  This story is unique because it has a heightened degree of fantasy but nevertheless takes place in a normal setting (Lowell, MA).  I pitched the idea to Ben, who then added his vision of using black and white transitioning into color as music is discovered.  I think this worked brilliantly.  Overall, we had a funky, comical storyline that we knew would stand out from the rest.  Plus, we would be able to shoot it pragmatically in everyday life without any elaborate sets.

Poliquin and Feuerstein found their actors through casting sessions posted on craigslist, got their film equipment from the Experimental College, and edited the footage in Braker’s basement lab.

Check out their terrific short film, The Man Who Made Music:

Each year, graduating seniors in the electrical and computer engineering program are required to work on a two semester project that addresses and attempts to solve an engineering problem. Seniors Yorman Garcia, Taylor Perkins, Farhan Shaukat, and Weiyi Zheng, otherwise known as “Team Vermillion,” worked together to create a “smarter drone” that can pick the best navigational path using GPS, an Arduino, and a Wi-Fi chip. The project is in conjunction with a Senior Design Course taught by professor Ronald Lasser that extends the full year. In Garcia’s words:

In the course, students are taught about things like the design process, the importance of knowing how to interact with people of different backgrounds, the importance of being ethical, and much more.

You can watch the video of their drone below:

Senior Cara Paley, A12, recently shared the details of her job search on the Tufts Career Services blog. The three-installment piece follows her experiences receiving an  interview after applying for a job through Tufts Career Connect, going to the interview, and waiting to hear back from the company. The posts are great for any student who is looking for insight in the somewhat-confusing world of job hunting.

An excerpt from her first post is just one example of her discoveries during the job search:

I found that the “two-week-turnaround” reputation of media hiring isn’t so rigid. True, media employers are notoriously last minute, unable to afford the same early recruiting efforts as say finance, engineering, and accounting. But if you highlight the fact that you’re a graduating senior and willing to start work in just a few short months, employers might just give your application a careful glance.

Does Cara get the job? Check out the last post in the series, here.

Each year, the religious festival Holi, also known as Festival of Colors, is celebrated around the world by Hindus welcoming the transition to spring. In honor of this cultural celebration, Tufts’ Hindu Student Council holds its own Holi every spring on the Rez Quad and welcomes the entire student body to join in. This year’s celebration included southeast Asian food, dancing, and colored powder, and was coupled with the Association of Pakistani Allies’ Basant kite flying festival. Sam Zuckert, E14, managed to catch the celebration on camera – check out the YouTube video below.

You may be on campus this Sunday for commencement or you may be cheering on your friends and family from afar. Either way, you can get an inside look at the day by following Tufts Commencement 2012 online. We’d love to have you join the conversation, so check out how you can take part:

• Twitter: We’ll be live tweeting from @TuftsLive, so follow along from early morning preparation to the procession, the awarding of honorary degrees, and the commencement address. Use the hashtag #Tufts2012 to let us know what you’re up to.
•  Web: Watch the live streamed ceremony at commencement.tufts.edu, where you will also find the @TuftsLive and #Tufts2012 feeds, so you’ll be sure to not miss a thing.
• Instagram: We love photos! If you’re on campus, snap some pictures and tag them #Tufts or #Tufts2012. We’ll be capturing some shots too, so be sure to check them out (username: TuftsUniversity)
• Facebook: We’ve been getting ready for commencement, and will have tons more photos to share just after the ceremony ends.
• Foursquare: Check into Tufts University Commencement 2012 on Foursquare, include a shout out about graduation, and you’ll earn the Hats Off Badge.

While both Tufts University and Tufts Alumni have started using Instagram to document life at Tufts, it’s always nice when students, staff, and visitors share their experiences of campus through social media. Here are a few great Instagram images we came across with the tag #Tufts. Feel free to follow the school’s accounts - TuftsUniversity and TuftsAlumni - and don’t forget to tag your photos so we can check out your time at Tufts!

Creating masterpieces in the dining hall #tufts @kaitlynhodgman

My school has the cutest mascot <3 #tufts #jumbo

#jumbo #tufts

@ECquidditch children playing at #tufts #playground #swings #akidatheart

In honor of @areyouwhoyouwanttobe, let's spend today in and around #Davis #square. #medford #Boston #Tufts #TuftsUniversity #subway #red_line #T #theT #MBTA #train #sign #map

What sounds more like Tufts than puns, civic engagement, and the environment? It won’t come as a surprise that Tufts alumni are essential to The Boston Tree Party.

The Party is a diverse coalition of organizations, institutions, and communities from across the Greater Boston Area coming together in support of Civic Fruit. We call for the planting of fruit trees in civic space and promote the fruits of civic engagement. Each community has committed to planting and caring for a pair of heirloom apple trees.

Three Tufts Alumni are leading the way at The Boston Tree Party. Lisa Gross is the Chairman and Founder, Maura Schorr Beaufait is the Chief of Operations, and Beth Nollner is Project Coordinator. Between them they hold degrees from Tufts/MFA, the Friedman School of Nutrition, and the Urban and Environmental Policy graduate program.

Check out this short documentary: “Growing Civic Fruit: A Documentary Film about the Boston Tree Party”

You can follow the Boston Tree Party on Twitter at @BostTreeParty

Tufts Film Works is Tufts’ local resource for student films on campus. Between sponsoring the re-occurring ExCollege class Making Movies, as well as providing students with the equipment for filming, the program is the ultimate resource on campus for aspiring actors, screenwriters, producers, and directors. Recently, students from this semester’s Making Movies class with Professor Don Schechter put together a short film as part of their assignment. In the words of co-director Kaveh Veyssi, A14:

 The focus was to be able to tell a story through all the elements of film: lighting, editing, sound, music, acting (body language and eyes), mise en scéne, etc.  The four of us were put together and given three weeks to write, cast, produce, direct this short film.  We were trying to tell a story without any dialogue, so we tried using sound and music to our advantage more than anything because as we’ve learned in the class, quite often sound is more important in the telling of a story than dialogue or the visual aspect of a film.

See the result below:

Tufts alumnus Ben Gittleson, A11,  has found something neat in Cairo. In the Egyptian capital, where political change has made life unpredictable, Parkour has gained popularity.

Ben, former Editor in Chief of the Tufts Daily, documented this discovery in a video and article that was recently featured on ESPN’s Page 2 website.

Cairo might seem like an unlikely place for parkour to take root. The free-spirited sport with French roots — in which athletes navigate urban environments with acrobatic techniques — does not necessarily mesh with Egyptian society’s conservative norms.

But it does provide an outlet for young Cairenes to get out their energy amid the pressures of life in the Egyptian capital. Endless traffic jams, suffocating pollution, and a dearth of public parks makes exercising difficult, and parkour is these youths’ answer to the constant stress.

Check out Ben’s video and the daring young Egyptians’ moves:

For more of Ben Gittleson’s journalistic work from Cairo, check out his website or blog.

Ammar Khaku, E12, wanted to find a way to visually represent where his classmates would be after graduation. When he couldn’t find a tool that did that well, he decided to build Tufts2012.com. He says, “The concept started off as a simple map with markers, but I added more features before it launched.”

He hopes that the site will be a resource for members of the class of 2012 to find other people in their area, and will create an interesting accumulation of statistics about the class. In the future, he plans to add optional information about what company people are working for or what they’re doing in the area, as well as restricting access to Tufts students and alumni. If the site takes off, he has even more plans including possible LinkedIn integration. He says, “I’m also taking feature requests, so let me know if there’s something you think would be cool!”

As for Ammar, his pin on the map is placed in Redwood City, California, where he’ll be working at Evernote next year.