The Building Virtual Worlds Course
Informally termed the bootcamp course within the immersion semester of the Masters of Entertainment Technology program at CMU, Building Virtual Worlds (BVW) was pioneered by the program’s co-founder Randy Pausch. With the idea of challenging students to work quickly, creatively and collaboratively, BVW gives small teams of students two weeks to create interactive virtual experiences, with new groups and goals for each round.
It culminates in the BVW Show, an annual event where some of the best virtual worlds are showcased in a carnival-like setting. Attended by students from across all departments of CMU, as well as entertainment industry professionals, it serves as a satisfying and bittersweet exclamation at the end of a rigorous semester.
One of my projects, Balloon Tower Princess Rescue, made it to the show! I played the part of the squire for one of the ‘knights’ we invited from the audience.
The Award of First Penguin
It is a semester end tradition at the ETC to confer The Award of First Penguin upon the student project that set their own goals and standards high and pushed for something they knew to be dangerous and difficult to achieve.
In Randy’s own words from The Last Lecture :
In a virtual-reality course I taught, I encouraged students to attempt hard things and not worry about failing. At the end of the semester, I presented a stuffed penguin—“The First Penguin Award”—to the team that took the biggest gamble while not meeting its goals.
The award came from the idea that when penguins jump in water that might have predators, well, one of them’s got to be the first penguin. In essence, it was a prize for “glorious failure.”
Experience is what you get when you don’t get what you wanted. And it can be the most valuable thing you have to offer.
I was thrilled when my Round 2 project Fantasy Flight was awarded The Award of First Penguin for the Fall 2011 semester!
