After a three-year hiatus, Bits On Our Minds (BOOM), a showcase of cutting-edge digital technology projects created by Cornell students, returns to campus for its 25th anniversary. The event will be held 4-6 p.m. on Thursday, April 27 in Duffield Hall atrium.

BOOM offers student teams and individuals the opportunity to showcase their projects, which will include games, robotics, autonomous vehicles, mobile phone apps and more, to the Cornell community and beyond. The Cornell Ann S. Bowers College of Computing and Information Science is sponsoring the event, but BOOM is open to participants from across the university, and the wider Ithaca community is invited to attend.

The first BOOM took place in 1998, making this year the 25th anniversary of the event. Due to the COVID-19 pandemic, however, the event was paused from 2020-22.

BOOM provides the rare opportunity for students to network with representatives from industry and receive feedback on their work. Several corporate sponsors will be in attendance and participants are encouraged to hone their elevator pitches and meet with sponsors  in a reception following the event. This year, the sponsors include Boeing, Sandia National Labs, LinkedIn, Goldman Sachs, EY, Air Liquide and Pepsi.

Teams will also be competing for cash awards, with projects judged on their novelty, performance, the quality of engineering, project difficulty, social benefits and presentation. The selected teams will receive a commemorative trophy and $750.

BOOM is free and open to the public.

Patricia Waldron is a writer for the Cornell Ann S. Bowers College of Computing and Information Science.