Through Campus and Industry Collaboration, Steelers Legend Jerome Bettis Visits ETC
On March 18th, 2026, Pittsburgh Steeler and 2015 Pro Hall of Fame inductee Jerome Bettis visited Carnegie Mellon University’s Entertainment Technology Center (ETC) as part of a continued collaboration between Bettis’s The Bus Stops Here Foundation and Boys and Girls Club of Western Pennsylvania.
While he was here, Bettis recorded dialogue in the ETC’s Sound Studio and got a full body 3D scan in the CAVERN space so that interactive experiences can be developed using his likeness for the CyberBus, a mobile STEAM lab developed in collaboration with the Boys and Girls Club.
In addition to the Boys and Girls Club and The Bus Stops Here Foundation, Bettis’s visit was made possible through collaborations with other internal and external partners including CMU’s Electrical and Computer Engineering (ECE) department and ECE Siewiorek and Walker Family Professor Anthony Rowe, FANUC Robotics, and the Pittsburgh Robotics Network.
Within the ETC, the partnership was spearheaded by John Balash and Anthony Palyszeski from the Outreach, Extension, and Engagement team. ETC Assistant Teaching Professor Vivian Shen and Senior Research Programmer Bryan Maher helped facilitate the use of the robot arm to scan Bettis, while ETC students Zihan Fan and Michael Wong developed XR stadium content displayed in the CAVERN for Bettis.
