Vesalius Trust-a-thon, A Virtual Challenge and Fundraiser
September 10 – 23, 2023
Vesalius Trust-a-thon 2023 has begun!
A Trust-a-thon is similar to a hackathon where people come together and create something within a specified time frame. Our teams will be challenged to create a visual communication piece (e.g., illustration, comic, animation, 3D model, interactive prototype). The work must be based on the theme, “Bridge the Gap,” and completed in 2 weeks.
Show some love by voting for your favorite team from September 21-23!
About the Vesalius Trust-a-thon Challenge and Fundraiser
The mission of the Vesalius Trust-a-thon is to encourage individuals to connect and create together while raising funds to support student research in the medical and scientific communication field.
100% of funds donated will go towards the Alan W. Cole Memorial fund which provides student scholarships.
Points Tally
Last updated: 2023-09-20, 20:30
| Teams | Funds raised (1$ = 1 pt) |
Likes (From Sep 18-23) (1 like = 10 pts) |
Votes (from Sep 21-23) (1 vote = 5 pts) |
Total points |
| Our job is just… Render | 765 | 149 | – | 2255 |
| Render Engines | 120 | 180 | – | 1920 |
| InsomniAXS | 764 | 168 | – | 2444 |
| Last 7 Brain Cells | 491 | 306 | – | 3551 |
| Sticky iPad Kidz | 40 | 55 | – | 590 |
| The Gerbils | 40 | 38 | – | 420 |
| Leave it to BVIS | 950 | 331 | – | 4260 |
| untitled.jpeg | 95 | 144 | – | 1535 |
| finalfinaldraftv5.ai | 40 | 39 | – | 430 |
| Hippocanvas | 40 | 43 | – | 470 |
Total fund raised: $3345 USD
2023 Teams
Team Our job is just… Render
Gyyoung Oh, Lily Armstrong-Davies, Emily Simpson, Gaby Rivera, Jennifer Wang, Jeff Day, Lauren Kubacki, Peter Naktin, Alexis Guerra
Team Render Engines
Clara Baumgarten, Shanling Lei, Alex Kontos, Keaton Mullins, Kassie Baker, Khorizon Dunn, Michelle Soltys, Vivian Zhuang
Team InsomniAXS
Jason Sharpe, Grace Hsu, Joyce Hui, Brad Kwarta, Lucas Lin, Matthew Ostil, Emily Tjan, Eddy Xuan, David Tran, Chelsea Canlas
Team Last 7 Brain Cells
Alexandra McDonough, Nolan Pakizer, Sara Lung, Helen Thio, Raisa Rodríguez, Lauren Kawamura, Leah Balsan
Team Sticky iPad Kidz
Kate Moore, Stefanie Wang, Bonnie Wang, Lauren Jones, Priya Modi
Team The Gerbils
Stephen Nachtsheim, Amy Jiao, Avila Sanchez, Joshua Ke, Vanessa Nguyen
Team Leave it to BVIS
Riley Cutler, Krystal-Flora Dureke, Susie Hammons, Natalie McAfee, Jasmine Tsin, Hayley D’Alessandro, Katherine Khuu
Team untitled.jpeg
Nichole Zhou, Nicole Arizala, Naomi Clay, Ashton Goebel, Emily Huang, Emily Mao, Molly Wells
Team finalfinaldraftv5.ai
Michie Wu, Shehryar Saharan, Amy Zhang, Tina Wang, Amy Assabgui Dogan, Laura Ekl
Team Hippocanvas
Josephine Choi, Beatrice Chen, Emily Eybergen, Geneviève Groulx, Andrew Janeczek, Tunyalux Langsub, Jayne Leggatt, Naomi Wee, Samantha Li
Trust-a-thon Guidelines
For the full list of challenge guidelines, click here.
For questions and inquiries, email canlas@vesaliustrust.org with the subject line: Trust-a-thon.
Important Dates
September 8
Deadline to register teams; secret theme announcement
September 10
Trust-a-thon week begins! Fundraising pages are live
September 18-23
Team posts that will collect likes for points will be posted on VT social media channels
September 21-23
Voting links are live
September 22
Deadline to submit final pieces (11:59 PM PST)
September 23
Team submissions are showcased online; voting ends at midnight
September 24
Winners announcement
Secret Theme
This year’s theme is… Bridge the Gap!
While medical or scientific content is welcome, the creative products of the teams are limited only by their imagination (being appropriate for a general audience of course – we’d like to keep it kid-friendly!).
Challenge Details
The Trust-a-thon will run from Sunday, September 10, to Saturday, September 23.
What is a Trust-a-thon?
A Trust-a-thon is similar to a hackathon where people come together and create a theme-specific product or piece in a short period of time.
Our teams have about two weeks to create a scientific or medical-themed communication piece. The piece must be based on a secret theme, and completed in two weeks time – but it’s ultimately up to the team to decide how much time they want to spend on this.
Although our goal is to raise funds for scholarships and awards, the Trust-a-thon is also a wonderful opportunity to make something fun, try out new techniques and skills, and connect with other creative individuals virtually! We’re setting up a Discord channel so our teams can hang out and connect with each other.
The Challenge
Teams will create a communication piece inspired by the secret theme (announced on Sep 8). The finished piece can take the form of a:
- 2D or 3D illustration
- Comic
- 3D model
- Short 2D or 3D animation
- Interactive prototype (web, AR/VR/XR)
- Donor appreciation gifts (e.g. digital poster or wallpaper, stickers, limited-edition 3D prints, etc.)
All teams will have from Sunday, September 10 to Friday, September 22 @ 11:59 PM PST to work on their communication piece and submit their final artwork.
Team Scoring
The team with the most points will be the Winner of the Trust-a-thon Team Challenge, while the team with the most votes will be awarded the People’s Choice.
1$ raised = 1 point
Raise funds to support student research. Each team will be provided a GoFundMe
page to share
1 vote = 5 points
Collect votes from September 21-23. Each team will be provided a voting link
to share
1 like = 10 points
Collect likes from Sep 18-23. There will be a designated post per team on VT social media channels
Prizes
Thanks to the generous support of the AMI, this year’s prizes are:
Winning Team
A bumper video at AMI 2024 featuring the team’s final piece
People’s Choice
A salon entry at AMI 2024 featuring the team’s final piece
Final pieces must be scientific or medical-themed to be eligible for the prizes.
2022 Trust-a-thon Gallery
Theme: New Energy ⚡
Total funds raised: $6,459 USD
Team 6-cess
Xinyi Li, Linda Ding, Viola Yu, Jessica Feng, Livia Nguyen, Amy Zhu
Learn more about their final submission, “Floresta,” an interactive visual narrative designed to inspire users to develop better sleeping habits through an educational and fun approach.
Team Big Maquette Connoisseurs
Joshua Koentjoro, Amy Jiao, Avila Sanchez, Emily Tjan, Stephen Nachtsheim, Vanessa Ngyuyen
Learn more about their final submission, “Gerbil Power,” a card game where players of all ages collect energy resources to build and innovate energy technologies.
Team Spicy Salamanders
Ashlyn Fieldhouse, Anais Lupu, Lilith Lawrence, Neramy Ganesan
Learn more about their final submission, “A Greener Way to Travel,” an animated timeline where their protagonist, Phil the Spicy Salamander, introduces important advances in automobile fuel technology.
Team BVIS Inc.
Eliza Stierle, Caroline Chatfield, April Damon, Amy Hoang, Sara Lung, Aven Jones, Susie Hammons, Eyzel Torres, SoYoung Kwon, Odelia Cheng, Dalena Huynh, Riley Cutler, Katherine Tran, Sydney Sieh-Takata, Lauren Muskara, Hannah Koffman, Shanling Lei, Khorizon Dunn, Leah Balsan, Nina Eckstein, Laurel Moore, Luca Brunozzi, Sam Bond, Elissa Schaffner, Alexandra McDonough, Delilah Pryzbyla, Sofia García Martínez
Learn more about their final submission, “The Night Shift,” a game where you’ll be helping Patch, handyman extraordinaire, as he assists some of the other body systems on the Night Shift.
🏆 2022 Winning Team
Team finalfinaldraftv4.ai
Michie Wu, Tina Wang, Shay Saharan, Aimy Wang, Mimi Guo, Viktoriya Khymych, Amy Assabgui, Jeff Day, Kelly Lim, Kai-ou Tang, Amy Zhang
Learn more about their final submission, “Positive Energy Island,” a poster of the island inhabited by energies that power the mind, body, and world around us.
Team Blood, Sweat, & Tears
Shubhreet Johal, Naomi Wee, Juno Shemano
Learn more about their final submission, “Bugs: The Future of Protein,” a manga comic about alternative protein sources.
Team Battle AXS
Jason Sharpe, Eddy Xuan, Joyce Hui, Matthew Ostil, David Tran, Chelsea Canlas, Ruth Chang, Stephanie Marquez, Lucas Lin
Learn more about their final submission, “CRUNCH TIME,” a game about a team in a crunch to finish a game—and how to keep them fueled.
🏆 2022 People’s Choice
2021 Trust-a-thon Gallery
Theme: A Path Forward ➡️
Total funds raised: $5,285 USD
Team finalfinaldraftv3.ai
Michie Wu, Shehryar (Shay) Saharan, Mimi Guo, Aimy Wang, Cassie Ren, Amy Assabgui
Learn more about their final submission, “Paving the Way,” an interactive experience about the discoveries of today that will influence tomorrow.
Team Studio Bivly
Natalie Krug, Sydney Agger, Sam Bond, April Damon, Yu-Sin Huang, Anne Hughes, Hailey Jorgensen, SoYoung Kwon, Delaney Maxwell, Hannah Montague, Lauren Muskara, Ryan Nini, Allison Pardieck, Delilah Przybyla, Sara Rutkowski, Maryam Shabbir
Learn more about their final submission, “A Flame Forward.” In response to “A Path Forward” being the prompt this year, the team wanted to focus on the rise in mental health issues that have increased since the pandemic. A desire to take players away and dissociate from the pandemic resulted in a relatable but fanciful twist on an adventure platform game.
🏆 2021 Winning Team
Team Y.E.W
Eric Chung, Willow Yang, Yu Xiang Ren
Learn more about their final submission, “Long COVID Tracker.” By designing an intuitive all-in-one mobile app, we wanted to help the people who have been affected by long haul COVID-19 in symptom and treatment management, as well as in general health tracking that may assist clinicians to in turn better help patients.
Team KICK AXS
Jason Sharpe, Joyce Hui, Chelsea Canlas, David Tran, Matthew Ostil, Nati Chen, Lucas Lin
Learn more about their final submission, “Abode: Climate Crusader,” a game about the small steps you can take to live more sustainably at home.
Team We Belung 2Gether
Amy Jiao, Anais Lupu, Livia Nguyen, Chris Ly, Viola Yu, Linda Ding, Joshua Koentjoro, Xinyi Li, Emily Tjan
Learn more about their final submission, “Postdemic,” a narrative comic following Poki through life thrown into upheaval by a global health crisis.
🏆 2021 People’s Choice
2020 Trust-a-thon Gallery
Theme: Apart, but Together 🤝
Total funds raised: $8,513 USD
Team SASS – Serious About Stylish Science
Ariadna Pomada Villalbí, Cassie H-W, Chloe Ma, Colleen Paris, Cassandra Tyson, Florence Thibault
An infographic targeted to any English-speaking lay audience that hopes to shine light and propose a direction to solve individual struggles in COVID19 times.
Team finalfinaldraftv2.ai
Naomi Robson, Michie Wu, Amy Assabgui, Mimi Guo, Abeeshan Selvabaskaran, Shehryar Saharan
miCo is an AR social app that connects children within hospitals, allowing them to play games, hangout with others, and customize their space in AR, all from the comfort of their room.
Team Blood Type BVIS
Emi Frohn, Allysa Benedict, Ben Colvin, Katie Harvey, Sam Palahnuk, Jeni Zernick
An animation that communicates how biomedical artists are so connected and in constant collaboration.
Team I Thought You’d Never AXS
Ruth Chang, Jason Sharpe, Susan Le, Matthew Ostil, David Tran, Joyce Hui, Chelsea Canlas, Eddy Xuan, Lucas Lin, Susan Park, Man-San Ma
PandemiQuest is a fun journey of connection through the great city of Toronto, as it perseveres through a pandemic.
🏆 2020 Winning Team and People’s Choice
Team Quinteceraptors
Victoria Achkasova, Nadiya Lobanova, Ivan Ilko, Pavlo Panchenko, Roxanne Ziman
Immune Blast is a relaxing and educational game about how your immune cells fight for you.
Team Zoomsday Machine
Joan Tycko, Pat Thomas, Donny Bliss, Chris Gralapp, Taina Litwak, Catherine Twomey, Pam Betts, Ikumi Kayama, Lisa Clark Thompson, Lee Ann Howdershell, Julia Lunavictoria, Delilah Cohn, Virginia Ferrante-Iqbal, Pam Little, Carol Marburger, Karen Bedell, Shirley Reid, Sarah Faris, Julie Gifford
A 2D quilt where each square is created by an artist and represents what gives them connectedness during these tumultuous times.
