WALT DISNEY IMAGINEERING IMAGINATIONS COMPETITION
TIME TUNNEL
Over the course of two weeks, I led a team of three with various artistic and technical backgrounds to design an attraction as participants in the Disney Imagineering Imaginations Design Competition. I helped to conceive an interactive space where guests are encouraged to discover how energy, technology, transportation, robotics, and architecture play a role in everyday living through augmented exhibits. I composed the story, aided in the creative design of preliminary concepts of the structures and various exhibits, and conceived and designed Warp and Slingshot, two animated characters for which the experience centered around.
Role
Lead Creative Designer (2012)
Story and Concept vision
Technical ideation
Elizabeth Lyons (erlyons8@gmail.com)
Responsible for high fidelity visual design and creative ideation.
Peerat Sukcharoenyingyong (peerats@vt.edu)
Responsible for additional creative and technical ideation.
Overview.
Welcome to the Time Tunnel Plaza, an interactive space to encourage guests to discover how energy, technology, transportation, robotics, and architecture play a role in everyday living through interactive exhibits. Guests are thrown into a story teeming with suspense and adventure, and are introduced to a dynamic duo poised to help save humanity from a looming crisis. Warp and Slingshot, two charismatic future beings, have traveled back in time to make pressing issues such as energy consumption and an aging infrastructure more apparent.
Story behind the design.
The year is 2065. The cities of the world are slowly degrading due to poor decision making and a lack of attention to our aging infrastructure. Warp and Slingshot, extraterrestrial time travelers from the year 2065, have been sent back to the present day to educate the masses and bring to light the crumbling infrastructure they live in during that time. Having exhausted their remaining fuel for the journey back, Warp and Slingshot are unable to return. With little knowledge of current day energy sources, they venture out in search of alternative energies available to them to travel forward through time by way of the Time Tunnel. The dynamic duo find themselves calling upon you to assist in their safe return and present innovative solutions which they can take back with them. Once you find an alternative energy source, Warp and Slingshot invite you to venture through time with them. As you travel, you see how the city transforms throughout the years in a matter of minutes. Your journey through the time tunnel leads you to the future city you shaped; a future teaming with sustainable technologies, new energy sources, futuristic modes of transportation, and a resilient infrastructure.
Guest experience.
Prior to entering the exhibits, guests are taken on an interactive elevator ride. Warp and Slingshot’s story is presented during the ride up. Through displays and other special effects guests are immersed in the year 2065. They see how and why the duo travels back in time to seek their assistance. On the ride down, guests are praised by the duo for safe guarding the future. Guests use their smartphones or tablets to interact with exhibit displays through the use of a mobile app made available on multiple mobile operating systems. Although using a device is voluntary, the purpose is to enhance the guest experience. Users without a device can rent one from within the exhibit floor. The application incorporates an augmented reality vision element that encourages guests to explore the exhibits in more depth. By simply facing the phone towards varying objects within the exhibit, basic information such as the name, short description, distance from, and pictures appear of that object on their device. The app also features notifications from Warp and Slingshot who will detect a guest’s current location and display important information about different attractions as appropriate. By visiting the exhibits, guests accumulate "energy points." Collecting enough energy points from within the present day exhibits grants them access to hidden features in the mobile application for use with the 2065 exhibits.
