bvw

All ETC students are required to take Building Virtual Worlds during their first semester. Although students spend the entire semester learning how to design and develop interactive experiences, the goal of the course is to teach students how to work in an interdisciplinary team in a high-stress environment. At the beginning of the course each students is assigned to one of five roles: Scripter, Painter, Modeler, Sound, or Designer/Producer. Although my background is in computer science, I was assigned to be a painter, which gave me an excellent opportunity to learn texture map painting. Students are randomly assigned to a team consisting of one student in each role, and the team spends two weeks designing and constructing an interactive experience for one of five multimedia platforms: virtual reality headmount displays, audience interaction through the use of cameras and vision software, the Jam-O-Drum (a four person interactive table), a Sony AIBO robotic dog, and an interactive animatronic character. After two weeks have passed students are assigned to a new team and the cycle begins again. Here are the five projects I worked on during BVW:

The Mating Game

Justin Cinicolo, Seema Patel, Christine Skarulis, and Vance Wallace

The assignment for Round 1 was to create a virtual reality experience in which the guest had to help one character who was afraid of another. In the Mating Game, the guest helps Boy Bunny woo Girl Bunny, who he's dealthly afraid of. The guest hands various items (roses, chocolate, vacuum cleaner, etc.) to Boy Bunny, who gives them to Girl Bunny. Depending on Girl's reaction, Boy Bunny can earn a heart. After Boy Bunny earns three hearts, Girl Bunny accepts his courtship, and the experience ends.

Doggie DDR

Tim Lander, Seema Patel, Victoria Webb, and Josh Wilson

In Round 2 my group decided to teach the Sony AIBO how to play Dance, Dance, Revolution. We wrote a custom two player version of the game in Panda3D in which colored icons containing paws, ears, and a tail scroll up the screen. When an icon reaches the top of the screen, the dog must move the corresponding body part. We also wrote custom vision software for the AIBO, allowing him to play the game just like a human would. During the final presentation, the AIBO faced off against a human dressed in a fur dog costume that I created.

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Flight of the Penguin

Modupe Adeleye, Gregory Lindley, Seema Patel, and Nik Pavlov

This virtual reality experience was designed to allow two guests to compete in a networked hang-gliding race that started at the top of a volcano, moved through geologic arches, and ended with a sprint down a canyon. We built two hang-gliding steering devices, rented scaffolding, and suspended guests in slings, to make the experience feel as realistic as possible. Unfortunately, we were unable to get the VR trackers to correctly interpret the steering devices' positions, and so the experience could only be operated with a keyboard. At the end of the semester this project was given the "First Penguin Award," a prize bestowed to the one project in the semester that took the biggest risk.

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Quasi's Photo Album

Andy Hosmer, Neel Kar, Tim Lander, and Seema Patel

When guests visit the ETC, they love to have their picture taken with Quasi, our animatronic character. Until this semester, these pictures (often taken with Celebrities) have resided on personal computers, inaccessible to the public. After visiting the Kidak Imageworks Lab at EPCOT, I suggested that our team create a photo album for Quasi containing pictures of him as well as a short illustrated story about how he was created. I also suggested that we automate the picture taking process. We setup a USB camera across from Quasi's kiosk and wrote a program that took a guest's picture with Quasi, e-mailed the picture to them, and then automatically added the picture to the photo album. While guests peruse the photo album, Quasi reacts to many of the pictures, and even does impressions of the celebrities in the photos.

Long-Rolling

Chris Antimary, Vamsi Bandaru, Josh Halipern, and Seema Patel

This entertainment experience involved two guests competing in a log-rolling race to win the hand of a girl. We built two input devices out of real logs that the guests had to physically balance on and roll. The course of the race was projected on the wall in front of the guests, and the faster the guests rolled, the faster they moved through the course.