Jesus alumni create an app for this year’s May Ball

Rafi Levy (2019, BA Computer Science) and Max Turner (2019, MPhil Architecture and Urban Design) built a digital interactive 3D model for this year's Jesus College May Ball: Bloom.

Rafi and Max first met back in 2021 as members of the May Ball committee. Their positions were webmaster and graphic designer respectively, which meant they worked closely to create a graphic scheme and build a website for the 2022 May Ball: Taking Flight.

Rafi and Max became great friends thanks to their time on the committee; they carried on working together after the event, helping people build websites through their joint passions for ingenious programming and distinguished design.

A year on, they were invited by their May Ball committee successors to create a web-app for the event, which would serve as a digital programme where guests would be able to access key information for the night.

Using his architectural knowledge, Max built a digital 3D model of Jesus College which Rafi then embedded within the May Ball website with real-time rendering. Thanks to this exciting new feature (a first for Oxbridge Balls!), guests were able to interact with the 3D map and intuitively navigate the college grounds as well as discover all the wonders the ball had to offer. The app also included more detailed lists of all the food, drink, music and other ents that were available, meaning that users could easily access crucial allergen, accessibility, and timing information. The web-app is still available to view here. 

Rafi and Max have since decided to continue developing this product professionally and now operate under the name of BlueProof. 

In his spare time, Rafi can be found up a rock or at the climbing gym. Having just come back from a 6-month trip to Southeast Asia and suffering from a serious case of travel blues, he plans on moving to Australia for a year where he will be working on BlueProof remotely.

Max, on the other hand, is still based in Cambridge and spends a lot of time at Kettle’s Yard; he is an admirer of Lucie Rie’s ceramics and enjoys spending his spare time in the studio making pots of his own.