STA Blog

STA Work Blog

STAs: Student Technology Assistants

Who We Are
LAITS: IT and Facilities Director, Joe TenBarge initiated the Student Technology Assistant program in 2004. STAs are UT students who work on a variety of projects in collaboration with UT faculty and LAITS staff members. STAs assist College of Liberal Arts faculty members and administrative staff with print and web design. From building presentations, to creating audio/visual works, and producing online classes in the LAITS film studios, STAs are instrumental in helping COLA faculty realize their vision for multimedia projects that enhance their teaching and the students learning experience. By the end of their student careers, STAs have portfolios which demonstrate their accrued technical and design skills.

Prospective STAs:

Creative and technically inclined students are appointed as STAs for one year, with the possibility of being rehired as long as they study at the university. Applicants for the program are hired before both long semesters. Interested students may look for postings on Hire-A-Longhorn when positions are available. Positions will have Student Technology Assistant (illustrator or web designer) in the title of the job post.

Faculty and Staff:

Faculty & Staff with questions about services, please contact us.

https://liberalarts.utexas.edu/laits/contacts.php

  • Audio Services: Michael C Heidenreich, Audio Services Manager
  • Video Services: Kelly Webster, Video Production Supervisor
  • Graphic Design & Web Design Services: Suloni Robertson, Art Director / STA Program Manager

Dreamweaver lessons for TBH

By

Personal Dreamweaver lessons for TBH

As the summer was ending I was asked to meet with Steve Black and Susan Dial in order to give them personal Dreamweaver lessons. They really liked the guide that I made earlier this summer but needed some clarification on specific issues that they were having. It was kind of scary. I know that they are really dedicated to what they do and therefore I was going to have to give them my best in order for them to leave happy. The problem is that I’m no Dreamweaver expert myself, since I barely started using it when I wrote the guide. In the end the meeting went pretty good. I wasn’t able to help them fix all their issues, we needed some help from Stacy for the last one. However, I think they were really pleased with my help. I taught them everything I could from going through the guide again with them to fun keyboard shortcuts for them to improve their use of Dreamweaver.

Computer Support Interactives

By

Computer Support Interactives

For the last few weeks of summer I worked on making Canvasser interactives for the Computer Support department at the CLA. The whole gist is that basically 80% of calls to Computer Support are about the same few issues that are simple to fix. This is how someone came up with the idea to create simple one-stop guides to fix any of these issues. Aidan developed some flowcharts for the basic process that one needs to follow in order to order a new computer, connect to wifi, a printer or a network drive. From here, I developed a canvasser interactive for each issue, with 1 slide per step in the flowchart. The interactives also ask the user questions about their particular system and situation in order to better help them. It took a couple of weeks of work and a LOT of changes to the original interactives because of styling problems and new Canvasser functionality. Finally, with some help from other STAs, I was able to create working products to be used this semester. Below are some pictures, first the original design then the final product.

Theater Set

By

Theater Set Final

I finally finished the set designs for TD301!!!!

It was pretty discouraging when I first sent in the images for testing, because the colors were not accurate at all on the big monitor. Originally we thought the blue would be the main issue, but yellow turned out to be the color that is having the most trouble.

 

To make the yellow appear more less green, I added more orange tones and enhanced the gradience. I also added the UT logo and stars as a finishing touch to make things stand out more. I made a very short animation for with the stars and lights twinkling and the UT logo flying by, but it took forever to export. Overall I am very happy with how it turned out, I really enjoyed drawing all the lights and using bright colors~

 

By

School is almost starting, so more things are getting a lot busier. This past week, I got to work on a bunch of animation related things. First, I copied the character costume for the waiter onto their walk cycle:

I also worked on the pedestrian, adventurer, and cafe owner walk cycles. Then I worked on the boat rowing cycle:

Then I worked on animating the fish objects I created before. This was a new and fun assignment because I worked with motion tweens for the first time.

I also lined and added to some watercolor backgrounds. I did the kitchen oven door and two angles for the bus stop:

I’ve also been working on psy333d. I’m going to be going into the studio to color correct on the spot Wednesday, but I made the canvas banner:

https://sta.laits.utexas.edu/blog/2018/08/21/24163-2/