This past week, Josh and Tracy attended the International Association of Amusement Parks and Attractions in Orlando, Florida.
http://www.iaapa.org/

The exhibition floor consisted of amusement park rides, concession vendors, animatronics and some technology vendors. They met new people and networked with friends from Thinkwell, the design and production company that Josh interned with this summer. The team drummed up some great leads and is looking at raising venture funds starting in December. There is still soft opening on Monday and then the BVW show on December 3rd - our final deliverable for this semester’s proof of concept!

Michael Keaton visited the ETC today and stopped by the project room to hear about our progress. We let him play a game… (with our cell phone to keep his number safe….) He was impressed and thought it was a great idea!

Whew… if Batman thinks it’s clever, the sky’s the limit!

We just found out today that we are a finalist in the Pittsburgh Innovates contest!  

The Pittsburgh Innovates contest ran for several weeks allowing people to submit their innovative ideas.  Entries had to have a connection to Pittsburgh.  Public rankings up to October 26, 2008 decided Pittsburgh Innovates 2008’s $10,000 winner. A panel of distinguished judges from Pittsburgh and beyond will decide Pittsburgh Innovates 2008’s $20,000 winner. Award winners will be announced at a special CityLive, November 24, 2008 at 6:30 pm at the New Hazlett Theater!

We are currently shown in position number 2 on the website and the ‘exact’ formula to determine the winner hasn’t been made public yet, but our team is just excited to be recognized!!!!  

We want to thank everyone who voted for us and for continually showing your support!

Please register for the event at http://www.citylivepgh.org/.  Come out and support Pittsburgh, CMU and the Entertainment Technology Center!

The event name is: 
A CONTEST FOR INNOVATION
Monday, November 24, 2008
6:30PM @ NEW HAZLETT THEATER

Your attendance may help us win the audience prize (apparently, text message voting for the audience prize… who knew? we could have implemented Get in Line for them instead!!!)  Bring your cell phone.  After all, you never know when a Get in Line game might be waiting for you…

-Tracy, Josh, Natasha, Lisa, Soo
Good things come to those who wait…. for November 24th *crossed fingers*

Soo, Josh and Natasha visited the Themed Entertainment Association’s Conference on Storytelling, Architecture, Technology and Experience. We met tons of great people from the industry and got great feeback on the project!

Click below to see photos from the trip!

Anthony Daniels, Visiting Professor of Entertainment Technology and Hollywood celebrity (C-3PO in all six Star Wars films), took the team out to dinner the other night! We had a great time talking about the project, entertainment and food. Thanks Anthony!