After a sold-out February show, we’re happy to bring three more diverse topics for March. Do you have a lawn? Grow food instead! Speaking of food, we get all kinds of great stuff when it ferments; does that mean it’s so bad it’s good? Typography has a rich history: hear about it at the next Nerd Nite.
When: Thursday, March 27th, at 7:30pm
(Doors & bar open at 7pm, with drinks available all night)
Where: Backstage Theatre at Fringe Theatre Adventures
A nice, lush lawn may look nice, but apart from walk on it and cut it incessantly, what does it do for you? You could be growing actual food that humans can eat instead! This talk will invite you to join the “seedy” world of urban agriculture where Nerd Nite and/or its speakers are not responsible for any obsessions that may ensue. You have been warned!
Jocelyn Crocker (BSc, MEd, EdD) is a recovering academic who now works for the public service. After replacing her front lawn with a food forest 15 years ago, Jocelyn and her family’s pantry and freezers (yes, plural) have been filled with home grown eats ever since. Jocelyn’s nerdiest triumph was representing Nerd Nite Edmonton at the International Nerd Nite conference in Washington, DC in 2015 with a talk about urban beekeeping, which means she’s been droning on about this sweet topic for a decade.
Brooke Babyak: Rotting Food on Purpose aka. Fermentation
The joys of fermentation, yielding food that promotes healthy bacteria, dynamic flavours, and possibly inebriation… From sourdough to wine, many cultures culture.
Brooke has been cooking from the time she could reach the stove to turn on the oven, which evolved into a career. She did her culinary training at Vancouver Community College and was offered a position cooking for the American Olympic team in Turin in 2006. She moved back to Edmonton the same year and worked in many of Edmonton’s best restaurants, bringing bacterial cultures from one kitchen to another!
The history of Western typography (in contemporary times typically referring to reproduced materials) has its roots in early hand lettering, especially formal styles that existed long, long before Times New Roman and Comic Sans. But how did our current alphabet come to look the way it does? Why do we read the way we do? The answers go back further than you might think!
Jennifer is a graduate of Fine Arts, Visual Communication and Design, at the University of Alberta. She has taught visual communication and typography at the post secondary level. In 2016, Jennifer earned a design-based MA, Humanities Computing; her research focussed on storytelling with interactive information graphics. While in grad school she was a research assistant for academic projects that examine how we read in the past to inform new ways of interacting with text now and into the future. Her areas of expertise include editorial, interpretive and information design.
Join us for a night that moves from the “final” frontier to cutting-edge engineering and cultural rhythm. Kick things off with Gina Vliet as she unpacks the surprising intricacies of organ, tissue, and body donation in Alberta. Then, get an inside look at the magic behind Variable Frequency Drives with Rhonda Shand, whose electrifying insights reveal how these devices power light rail transit. Finally, tap into the dynamic world of Japanese drumming with Carley Okamura, as she explores the rich history and modern pulse of Taiko.
When: Thursday, February 27th, at 7:30pm
(Doors & bar open at 7pm, with drinks available all night)
Where: Studio Theatre at Fringe Theatre Adventures
Gina Vliet: How to Dispose of a Body in Alberta: the intersection of organ, tissue, and body donation
Learn how organ, tissue, and body donation intersect and impact each other. Discover what you, your loved ones, caregivers, and your executor need to know to ensure your wishes can be met.
Gina Vliet is your friendly neighbourhood death educator and a bit of a polymath. With her certification as an Executor Advisor, education in funeral services, and skills as an instructional designer and facilitator, Gina makes talking about mortality both practical and fun.
A graduate of the University of Alberta, Gina’s insights have been featured on CBC and in the U of A’s New Trail magazine. She’s also hosted over 60 Death Cafés, where people come together to chat openly about death and dying. She also contributed to the creation of Compassionate Alberta, a project dedicated to raising awareness about palliative care and advance care planning across the province.
Rhonda Shand: Variable Frequency Drives (VFDs) in Light Rail Transit
Ever wondered how the hum of a light rail train transforms into the smooth acceleration that whisks you across the city? The secret lies in a technological marvel called the Variable Frequency Drive (VFD)—a device so versatile it’s not just revolutionizing Light Rail Transit, but also powering everything from industrial factories to your neighborhood HVAC systems. In her talk, Rhonda Shand will pull back the curtain on these unsung heroes of modern engineering, revealing how VFDs blend physics, innovation, and a dash of magic (or, well, electrical wizardry) to keep our world moving.
Rhonda Shand is an electrical engineering graduate from the University of Alberta and describes herself as a transgendered, Wiccan, moonshining electrical engineer. Her friends describe her as the “Enchantress of all things electron.” One of her specializations is power electronics having spent many years as a design, implementation, and field service engineer with that type of equipment (she often gets mistaken as an electrician which she considers a compliment). She has spent time on the Edmonton Valley Line South East presently in operation, and is involved as a Lead Systems and Integration Engineer with Parsons and is presently engaged with Edmonton Valley Line West presently being built.
Carley Okamura: Taiko and Why it’s Cool
Learn about the artform and history of Japanese drumming, and how it is practiced in current times. Learn why it is growing in popularity around the world and is one of the most intersectional places you may experience.
Carley Okamura is a mixed race, fourth-generation Japanese Canadian. She is the president of Kita no Taiko, Alberta’s oldest Japanese drumming group, and Chair of the Taiko Community Alliance, an American non-profit serving the larger taiko community. Carley formed her own company, Rabbits Three Cultural Connections, to create works through a socio-cultural lens.
We’ve got a great lineup for you for the last show before our winter break! What do we get from schlocky TV shows like “Supernatural”? How do modern board game makers use 3D printing in their design process? How does indie video game development happen? Is learning more fun while drinking? Get your answers on November 28th!
When: Thursday, November 28th, at 7:30pm
(Doors & bar open at 7pm, with drinks available all night)
Where: Studio Theatre at Fringe Theatre Adventures
Glenna Schowalter: Exposing the Guts and Wires of Supernatural
In a world saturated with high quality television, why would someone choose Supernatural as the focus of their master’s thesis? Learn what mediocre media can teach us and get the inside scoop on grad school.
Glenna Schowalter is a writer, performer, and theatre technician based in Edmonton. She has a Master of Arts in Media and Cultural Studies from the University of Alberta, which inspired this talk. These days she performs with Sorry, Not Sorry Improv doing all kinds of nerdy comedy, including a format that she designed inspired by — you guessed it — Supernatural. You can also find her streaming on Twitch once a week.
Tyler Anderson: Evolution of the Modern Boardgame Designer
With the advent of 3D printing, the monopoly on boardgame creation has been broken! In this presentation we discuss the history of boardgame design and the impact that modern technology has had on empowering creative people to express their ideas in the exciting medium of board games!
Tyler Anderson is an avid board gamer whose history ranges from playing Magic the Gathering competitively to producing board games that have been Kickstarted. He has a deep interest in the functional and mechanistic ways that board games work.
Madison Côté & Derek Kwan: Why Independent Game Developmers (Indies) are the Future of Game Development
No matter what your creative inclinations are, we believe that everyone can make games. Whether you are a programmer, artist, writer, musician, project manager, marketer, designer, and anything in-between–everyone has the capacity to contribute to amazing games. However, making games of any type is VERY DIFFICULT, and being “indie” (independent game developers) is the hard mode of game development. We believe tat indies are one of the most important parts of our game development ecosystem in Alberta, so we are finding ways to support our local indies and to inspire nerds like you to create games yourself! If you love playing cool and interesting games — or if you have ever thought about making games — come listen to this talk!
Madison Côté and Derek Kwan are the humans behind Interactive Arts Alberta, a non-profit based in Edmonton that supports Alberta’s game development ecosystem. Since 2014, Interactive Arts Alberta has supported local game developers by building capacity for games culture and game development in the province. Together, they curate the Game Discovery Exhibition (GDX), North America’s largest indie games festival, as well as its conference which hosts topics such as Indie Dev, AI/ML in Games, Building a Better Games Industry, and Indigeneity and Diaspora in Games. Recently, they launched the “Walkthrough Collaborative Centre” on Whyte Ave, a donation-based community hub for indie game developers to collaborate and connect.
Madison and Derek are also 2/6ths of their indie studio, Cozy Comet Games… making cute and cozy games to play while wrapped up in a blanket and drinking a warm cup of cocoa.
