In the Spring of 2023, I competed in the Theme Park Engineering Group Alumni Competition. I was a part of a team of five amazing students from the Ohio State Theme Park Engineering Group (TPEG) and we were given the following prompt:
“Malls were once the cultural epicenter of cities and towns across America. With the rise in online shopping however, many of these malls now sit empty and deserted. You work for a company that has been tasked with repurposing these abandoned spaces. You must create a new, indoor, entertainment center using the foundation and basic structure of the mall that came before. The mall you are refurbishing is 2 stories tall and 500,000 sq. ft. You get to choose what city and state this imaginary mall will be located!
Your design must include the following elements:
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2 attractions or entertainment experiences
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1 Experiential retail location with a themed element
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1 dining location w/ signature food item”
This competition was a great way for me to explore design in themed entertainment. I worked primarily on the ride concept and design, and the concept of a themed walkthrough based on Loch Ness. The ride is a suspended coaster inspired by the Inverted Powered Coasters made by Mach Rides and takes you on an adventure chasing after the legendary Mothman. I created a layout for the ride, sketches of the ride vehicle, and I created a model of the ride in Planet Coaster along with a trailer for marketing the ride. You can watch the trailer at this link: https://youtu.be/hvpHsRy0wTI?si=FefYpPqTgbNd0KA9.
I had a blast working on this project with my team. We had a bunch of different backgrounds that worked really well together. A couple of us were engineering students, we had some members who were studying business, and several of us who write and perform music. The music in the trailer was actually made by one of my teammates, which shows how much creativity went into this project and how well we worked together as a team. One person would have an idea for something, and then it would get everyone else excited to see what we could add to the idea and how we could incorporate into the entertainment center. For example, I made a drawing of the Loveland Frogman to convey what I was thinking for a character meet-and-greet, and one of my teammates loved it so much that they made a t-shirt design using the drawing. It was a ton of fun, and I will never forget our brainstorming sessions together.
You can find the competition details at this link: Past Competitions – T.P.E.G. ALUMNI COMMUNITY (weebly.com)
You can find the interview my team did with Coaster101 at this link: https://www.buzzsprout.com/1159478?client_source=large_player&iframe=true&referrer=https://www.buzzsprout.com/1159478.js?container_id=buzzsprout-large-player-1159478&player=large#