Students can now download to their phones an app that is the product of the ISU College of Engineering.

This app was thought up by a group of students in a senior-level computer engineering class and created by a freshman in his dorm room. The official College of Engineering app debuted on Jan. 4. There were nearly 800 downloads in the first week.

“This project was a grass-roots and student-led effort,” said Jonathan Wickert, dean of the College of Engineering. “I’m very proud of the collaboration between Tyler Bell, the senior design project team, and Travis Ballstadt in Engineering College Relations. They worked very closely with ISU’s information technology office and many others to get the details right.”

Bell, a senior in computer science, created the “Be > You Imagined” app last year. The app provides 14 services at the fingertips of ISU students. It is free and is available for the iPhone and iPad through the App Store and will soon be available for the Android.

“We wanted it to be the College of Engineering brand, but we wanted it to be something that every ISU student could use,” Bell said.

Bell was given the project from his employer at the College of Engineering College Relations Department. Bell worked on the project from his freshman dorm room in Eaton Hall and let his friends test it out. He reshaped the app several times before selecting the current design for release.

The app offers features that include a map with every building on campus, laundry machine availability for the dorms, a lab feature, news, events, videos, CyRide schedules, an ISU directory and more.

“Say you need to find out where a professor’s office is,” said Josh Schroetter, senior in computer engineering, who constructed the Android version. “Just look in the directory portion. Want to know where that building is located? You can go to the map and look it up. Then you’ll probably want to know what bus can get you there, so you can just go to the CyRide function. It is almost everything you will need as an Iowa State student.”

“Be > You Imagined” is the College of Engineering’s second app. The first, “Innovate for the iPhone,” is the college’s app edition of its publication Innovate. These two are the first apps that were designed, developed and produced by ISU students. Bell played a major role in the production of both ventures, but this is nothing new for Bell because he has completed a total of 10 apps since he began producing them.

“This has been the College of Engineering’s biggest undertaking recently,” Bell said. “And it has definitely been my biggest undertaking, so it is very cool to see it out there for people and see posters and everything.”

Bell will continue to add features to the app and hopes to work with Dining Services, Recreation Services and ISU Alert to bring students more of what they want. “Be > You Imagined” is designed to make planning easy and organized so that students can focus their time on becoming greater than they imagined.