Since 2021 I have been working with the Ohio State Theme Park Engineering Group (TPEG) to design, build, and program a winter light show for Ohio Staters’ Light Up The Lake event. This is by far one of the coolest projects I have gotten to work on because it combines my interests in themed entertainment, engineering, and music all into one project, and our audiences have loved it each year!
I was one of the first members of the project team when TPEG first took on the project in 2021. I helped to design and construct the physical set pieces. I also learned a program called XLights to program a segment of the show. My segment of the show for 2021 was Script Ohio, a very famous Ohio State tradition. I programmed an animation of the script Ohio being created using turtle graphics in Python, then I recorded a video of it and overlayed it on the center matrix of our lights display. The segment was very popular as kids and parents rushed onto the stage and started marching around a mock Script Ohio. Because of the commotion that was caused from how excited people got during this segment, we had to make sure people could not get too close to the lights for our 2022 show.
In 2022 we worked to improve upon our work the year before and create a more engaging experience for the audience. To improve upon our work, we fixed any set pieces that were broken and introduced fog machines. To further engage the audience, we connected the different show segments with an overarching story and narration. I once again programmed a segment of the show and decided to use another popular song at Ohio State, Hang on Sloopy. My goal with this song choice was to get the audience to participate in the show without them climbing onto the stage. Our audience was primarily Ohio State students and alumni, and I was excited to see them stand up, sing along, and do the popular “O-H-I-O” with the song all from their seats.
I look forward to working on this project again for 2023 and continuing to use engineering to create unique entertainment.