DU Alumna Helps Bring Star Wars to Life

Vernon works as a game designer with Sphero. While the engineers create the droids and make sure everything operates properly, the game designers are responsible for making sure the droids actions and sounds imitate the movies. With the release of “Star Wars: The Force Awakens,” Vernon and her co-workers created a new feature called “watch with me.” When you play the movie on your television or computer, BB-8 will listen to it through your phone and react to what’s happening on the screen.

Recently, Vernon was back on campus speaking to students during a Dine & Dialogue event hosted by the Office of Alumni Relations. The event is an opportunity for current students to hear from alums about their experiences.

“I loved it when people came to me as a student to talk about their experiences,” Vernon says. “When you are a senior and graduation is really close, it’s a very uncertain time. To have someone there to say, ‘I have been through the same thing, and this is how I did it,’ it’s very reassuring.”

Her message to students is to make sure the work they do outside the classroom is as important as what they are doing inside.

“In school, you really focus on your grades, but it’s the side projects that show what you love to do,” Vernon says. “Make sure that you have time for yourself to do something that you love, then when you go into a job interview it shows off a lot more than what you did in school.”

On Sunday, Dec. 17, the University of Denver is hosting three sold out private screenings of "Star Wars: The Last Jedi" in Denver. Darby Vernon will do a live demonstration with the Sphero droids and answer questions from the 560 DU alumni and community members in attendance. All proceeds from this event will benefit the University's Robots and Autism Fund and DU's very own droids, including Ryan and Zeno.