Theatre Design & Technology - Spring 2006 - 36

which develops and manufactures a wide range of high-tech products in
their Colorado Springs facility, kindly gave the engineering students a
tour of their facilities and gave them an opportunity to present their
progress to a team of practicing professional engineers. The Wybron engineers took the student's presentation seriously and even suggested a
chip to improve signal conditioning. The day closed with a visit to
Barbizon in Denver where the team looked at a variety of automated fixtures, including High End Systems' new DL.1 Digital Light and the Catalyst
Media Server.
The engineers began finalizing designs and developing prototype
devices for Colorado State's Engineering Days festivities in late April
2004. The management of RAMBox asked the engineers to use the event
to roll-out prototypes of all products. Sleepless nights were required of
the team during the week that led up to Engineering Days to prepare the

cluding one returning engineer, signed on for year two. One disappointment, however, was that the theatre students had had no opportunities to
be as active in field testing as originally envisioned. We had missed the
Spring Dance Concert, and in fact the theatre students had yet to receive
a prototype. Thus, by mutual consent (and since none of them were
graduating immediately) their participation would continue into the fall
semester.
The academic year ended on a high note for the RAMBox team at
the 2004 Braddy Awards sponsored by students in the Theatre and Dance
Programs. The engineering students were presented the David Lord
Award, recognizing exceptional contributions to the CSU University Theatre by a person or persons not directly associated to the Theatre Arts
Program.

PHOTO BY CAROL ROSEGG

PHOTO BY JOHN E. MAHAN

Captain Louie, at the Little Shubert Theatre, 2005, was
first to use Keystroke in a commercial production.

At Engineering Days 2005, Emily Shideler
and Adrienne Iguchi exhibited working
prototypes of RAMBox's inventions.

new products for public demonstration. However, when Engineering
Days arrived, the engineers succeeded in demonstrating all three prototypes. Responding to DMX 512 signals from a Horizon controller, the
"SLIDEBox" product could advance and reverse an Ektagraphic projector; the "FOGBox" controlled an F100 Smoke Generator's rate of flow;
and the "PCBox" triggered a PowerPoint presentation running on a slave
personal computer.
At this point, RAMBox had "reduced to practice" three inventions,
and so attention turned in a serious way to protection of intellectual
property. Management had cautioned the engineers that an "enabling
disclosure" must not be made at Engineering Days, which was an event
open to the public. By contrast, their written end-of-semester report
could and should be an enabling disclosure; indeed, technical detail was
necessary to receive proper academic credit for the Senior Project. The
written report consisted of a Users' Manual and a Technical Reference
transmitted to company management.
Demonstration of three products was an exhilarating success for everyone associated with RAMBox The excitement generated at April's Engineering Days encouraged several junior engineering students to apply
to join RAMBox Inc. for the 2004-2005 academic year. Six students, in-

Proprietary Information and Assignments of Ownership
The Colorado State University Research Foundation (CSURF) manages
and protects the intellectual property developed at the University. Their
disclosure form requires descriptions of the invention and of potential
commercial applications, identification of important steps and their
dates in the innovation process, and a list of the inventors and a percentage assignment of each individual's contribution. In compliance with
these requirements, the RAMBox engineers had demonstrated working
prototypes with a potential commercial value. All of the students and faculty advisors had been assigned a percentage, based on their involvement. Then, the theatre students, working in their capacity as the
Marketing Department and as co-inventors with the engineers, submitted
an Invention Disclosure Form to the university. This routine disclosure
turned out to be a ground-breaking event for CSURF because the university had no policy for receiving and evaluating inventions from undergraduates; in the past, only faculty, staff, and graduate students had
developed new intellectual property.
In this new situation, CSURF's attorneys not only had to evaluate
whether the inventions disclosed were novel and had commercial potenTHEATRE
SPRING

2006

DESIGN

TECHNOLOGY

Table of Contents for the Digital Edition of Theatre Design & Technology - Spring 2006