ETC Spring 2026 Projects

The Spring 2026 projects at Carnegie Mellon University’s Entertainment Technology Center (ETC) exemplify the wide range of topics our students and faculty explore. From reimagining museum exhibits to testing out new ways of integrating the physical and virtual world, this semester’s teams are including experiments in interactive museum exhibits, augmented and extended reality, robotics, and education technology. Below is an overview of this semester’s projects.

Exploring the Past

Mid-Way

Advisors: Shirley Saldamarco, John Dessler
Team: Cayla Kennedy, Devika Santosh, Handan Zhang, Jack Peng, Jimmy Jian, Yifan Chen

Mid-Way is a team of six ETC graduate students developing an interactive prototype for potential inclusion in the Heinz History Center’s Summer 2027 exhibition on Western Pennsylvania’s amusement park heritage. The project envisions a dynamic museum experience that can be further expanded and fabricated for public installation.

Ghaist

Advisors: Scott Stevens, Mike Christel
Team: Jerry Zheng, Na Chen, Yuhuai Huang, Agnes Zhang, Shiwei Hong

Ghaist is an AI-powered interactive experience that brings 18th-century scientist Joseph Priestley to life for the Priestley-Forsyth Memorial Library in Northumberland, PA. Powered by large language model (LLM) technology, the experience will invite visitors to converse with Priestley’s “ghost” through a diary-inspired interface. Built to travel to schools and conferences, the project aims to spark curiosity and make history feel immediate, personal, and alive.

HistOracle

Advisors: Libby Egan, Haru Zhu, Junru Yang, Boreas Yang, Yilin Shi, Mingrui Xu
Team: Jonathan Walton, Vivian Shen

HistOracle is a collaborative ETC project developed in partnership with the Carnegie Museum of Natural History centered on the museum’s rare collection of 3,000-year-old Oracle Bones. These artifacts were used in divination ceremonies and represent the earliest known records of written language in East Asia. The team will transform these primary sources into an interactive game, one that transports players back to the Shang Dynasty as royal diviners to the king.

Exploring How We Play

Aidyn Reforged

Advisors: Chris Klug, Ruth Comley
Team: Jing Jing, Vector Liu, Austin Szema, Ayman Kone, Quin Xu, Eyana Yan

This project advances the future of in-person tabletop role-playing by leveraging Tilt Five’s AR technology. Building on more than a decade of virtual tabletop evolution, the team will develop a next-generation hybrid RPG system that enhances both mechanics and imagination while preserving the tactile and social benefits of gathering around a table.

Quake Quack

Advisors: Ruth Comley, Ricardo Washington, Chris Klug
Team: Jialan Dong, Dennis Sun, Eliana Huang, Azu De, Frida Chen, Victor Lu

Quake Quack is building a third-person action-adventure level design project set in the Rifts Universe with the goal of delivering a polished mid-game experience that reinforces core mechanics while deepening narrative and environmental storytelling. Built in Unreal Engine 5, the game will challenge players to master traversal, combat, and exploration within a carefully structured gameplay space.

Questweavers

Advisors: Ruth Comley, Ricardo Washington, Chris Klug
Team: Jiakun Wu, Zhanqi Yang, Steve Wang, Ethan Zhu, Josh Kaplan, Aurora Liu

Questweavers is a six-person team developing a multi-level game exploring the mechanics of stealth and escape in a mist-covered landscape. Players must learn to control the mist’s properties to progress through the game, using it to evade enemies and open up new paths. The project emphasizes environment-first design, creating a tense, systems-based experience that rewards intuitive interaction with the world of the game.

A.N.E.N.Y.

Advisors: Jonathan Walton, Heather Kelley
Team: Nightray Zhou, Yifan Jiang, Enn Ruan, Nina Gamboni, Adeline Wu

Built around a custom electro-mechanical pinball cabinet, the team behind A.N.E.N.Y will leverage the machine’s tactile feedback and emotional immediacy to communicate complex narrative themes. Through physical interaction and layered storytelling, the experience will invite participants to reflect on the thin line between being a willing player and becoming a product within the larger machine of contemporary society.

RECreate

Advisors: Tom Corbett, Brenda Bakker Harger
Team: Andy Pang, Cheryl Wang, Cynthia Li, Freida Hong, Yuntao Wang, Benjamin Walker

RECreate is building a virtual social experience in Rec Room to celebrate the ETC’s creative culture and achievements to mark the ETC’s 25th anniversary. The goal is to create an immersive gathering space where alumni, current students, prospective students, and the public can connect and explore the ETC’s history of innovation.

Exploring Emerging Technologies

AppetizeR

Advisors: Tom Corbett, Brenda Bakker Harger
Team: Andy Pang, Cheryl Wang, Cynthia Li, Freida Hong, Yuntao Wang, Benjamin Walker

AppetizeR will blend communal storytelling with mixed reality experimentation, using Snap’s Spectacles to guide groups of 3–6 guests through a shared emotional journey before a meal. Seated together around a table, participants will experience a synchronized AR narrative designed to unfold collectively — transforming the anticipation we feel before a good meal into a meaningful narrative ritual.

Torchbearer

Advisors: Drew Davidson, Steve Audia
Team: Frank Lin, Henry Wang, Jose Mireles, Jason Jiang, Michael Wong, Ivy Hu

The Torchbearer team will advance development of the ETC’s CAVERN, a 270-degree panoramic CAVE system designed for shared, room-scale virtual reality; it currently renders only one perspective for one tracked player at a time — limiting truly collaborative interaction. Building on previous CAVERN toolkits, the team will implement a new rendering technique that will allow multiple players to view shared elements simultaneously from their correct perspective.

SoulOS

Advisors: Vivian Shen, Charles Johnson
Team: Yufei Chen, Vivian Chen, Erin Hao, KX Shuai, Aiden He, Field Luo

Built around a physical Unitree G1 robot and an accompanying AR system that will span the two connected spaces, SoulOS will explore the role robotics can play in entertainment technology. One player will enter the robot’s perspective through AR, seeing through its eyes and influencing its movements, while the other will share physical space with the robot and complete hands-on repair tasks.

Dots to Depth Studios

Advisors: John Dessler, Moshe Mahler
Team: Alex Li, Christina Yin, Alivia Park, Grace Rodriguez Gomez, Hazel Li, Oliver Zhu

Working closely with ETC faculty and subject matter experts from CMU’s Software Engineering Institute, Dots to Depth Studios seeks to expand the creative and technical potential of 3D Gaussian Splatting (3DGS) within virtual production. The team is building a fully replicable pipeline that enables creators to capture real-world objects or environments and generate fully manipulable 3D assets inside Unreal Engine.

Liminal

Advisors: Dave Culyba, Jesse Schell
Team: Ben Morris, Autumn Chan, Max Zhang, Max Zhou, Moe Aguilar Sanchez, Fay Li

In partnership with Schell Games, Liminal is creating a multi-room mixed reality experience that blurs the boundary between physical and virtual space. Through careful real-world staging and layered perceptual illusions, Liminal aims to turn “glitches” into tangible, believable reality, turning everyday architecture into gateways for immersive storytelling.

ACT VI

Advisors: Brenda Bakker Harger, Moshe Mahler
Team: Ling Lin, Aidan Terry, Di Wen, Liz Lin, Linda Wang, Sudarshan Choudhari

Through experimentation and iteration, ACT VI will investigate possible uses of AI in experimental theater. The team is developing a live play with room for improvisation, featuring one human actor and one AI-controlled character embodied by an object on stage. Using voice input and AI responses generated in real-time, the system will follow the rules of improvisation while maintaining a curated personality and narrative arc.

Exploring Educational Technologies

SoKids

Advisors: Jessica Hammer, Heather Kelley
Team: Aya Al Sabahi, Gamma Zheng, Minjung Park, Tony Liu, Victor Jhou, Angie He

SoKids is a research-driven game project developed in collaboration with the Center for Transformational Play and the CMU Children’s School. Guided by early childhood researchers and educators, the team is exploring how digital games can serve as playful research tools to better understand how preschool-aged children make sense of social categories. Built to be more scalable and accessible than traditional in-person studies, the project aims to invent a way to generate ethical insights into early social cognition.

It Takes Two Alices

Advisor: Dave Culyba
Team: Sapphire Ruan, Oulan Li, Chufan Chen, Emily Zhang, Oscar Mailman, Yuchen Xue

Built for the Tilt Five tabletop AR system, It Takes Two Alices is developing a two-player cooperative puzzle game designed to spark excitement about programming in young learners. Through shared 3D visuals projected onto a play mat, the game will introduce foundational coding concepts in an approachable, collaborative format — helping kids build confidence early so they can transition to Alice or traditional programming languages without intimidation.

Brick Zone

Advisor: Ralph Vituccio
Team: Esther Jeon, Arthur Tang, Ean McFadden, Isabella Chen, Harley Xu

Inspired by initiatives like CodeJoy and developed in collaboration with the ETC’s Outreach, Extension, and Engagement team, the team behind BrickZone is developing a five-minute performance that blends physical and digital LEGO elements to engage middle school audiences. The project will combine an interactive island built in Unreal Editor for Fortnite with physical LEGO sets and live-action filming space, creating a dynamic bridge between virtual gameplay and tangible construction.

Spark-Smith Studio

Advisors: Derek Ham, Scott Stevens
Team: Zoe Liu, Barry Yuan, Ethan Wills, Alvin Li, Zelin Chen

Developed in collaboration with Professor Dina El-Zanfaly from CMU’s School of Design and community partner Industrial Arts Workshop, Spark-Smith Studio is creating an XR experience intended to spark interest in welding among teens and young adults with little prior exposure. Built for the Meta Quest 3, the VR experience will cast players as a spaceship maintenance worker repairing asteroid damage through adapted welding interactions.

Interest Curve

Advisors: Drew Davidson, Charles Johnson
Team: Ailun Zhou, Jerry Wang, Rob Huang, Sun Zhimiao, Peter Cheng

Partnering with Syclus, Interest Curve is developing Bodega Budget: a mobile-first financial literacy game designed to support underserved high school students. The experience guides players through a complete financial journey — from opening a personal bank account with customizable identity, language, and currency options to managing daily expenses, allocating investments, and navigating a time-limited stock market shaped by unfolding life events.

Student Pitch Projects

Remnants

Advisors: Shirley Saldamarco, Ricardo Washington
Team: Riya Kanani, Alex Hall, Jiaxin He, Melanie Danver, Malaya Heflin, Michelle Fan

Designed for the ETC’s 270° projection environment known as the CAVERN, Remnants is building an immersive interactive installation that will invite guests to use props to care for a responsive digital garden that acts as a metaphor for individuals living with dementia. Remnants aims to foster empathy for caregivers and explores how physical interaction can deepen emotional engagement in immersive environments.

Grey Waves

Advisor: Chris Klug
Team: Dongwei Song, Jenny Wu, Jiawei Li, Jomin Chen, Paige Li, Xujie Zhang

Inspired by the devastating 2008 Wen Chuan earthquake that claimed 80,000 lives, the Grey Waves team is building a 3D narrative puzzle game that retells the story from the perspective of a teacher at a middle school that managed to evacuate more than 2,000 students and staff in just 96 seconds. Through environmental storytelling and puzzle-driven gameplay, the experience will trace how disaster survivors move from powerlessness and grief to acceptance.

Big Picture Studio

Advisor: Dave Culyba
Team: Derek Wong, Ian Accetta, James Huang, Samantha Lai, Skye Gao, Winnie Tsai

Big Picture Studio is an interdisciplinary team developing a cooperative puzzle game meant to be played across multiple mobile phones. Drawing inspiration from comic panels and cinematic storytelling, the experience explores the possibilities and limitations of cross-device interaction the game requires players to physically connect, rotate, and rearrange their phones to progress — transforming separate screens into a communal experience.

Aktis

Advisor: Vivian Shen
Team: Jack Chou, Eve Ren, Jing Chung, Lea Shi, Ye Wei, Sally Jin

Aktis is exploring a future of mixed reality where the world itself becomes the controller. Built using Unity, Meta Quest 3, and ArUco markers, the system tracks physical objects in real time, allowing them to trigger effects and reshape the environment. By treating everyday physical objects as interactive interfaces, the project transforms real-world space into an active part of gameplay.

Archigram 20'26"

Advisor: Derek Ham
Team: Cyan Han, Jessica Li, Mark (Jianwen) Wu, Tao Jin, Weiyi Zhang, Steven Wang

Archigram 20’26” is making a procedural level design toolkit that will generate playable, high-mobility levels adapted to different players. Rather than using procedural generation solely for visual worldbuilding, the system prioritizes gameplay; designers will be able to input elements such as splines, difficulty curves, and gameplay parameters, and the tool will produce cohesive levels reflecting designer intent.