Students playtesting the CAVERN

Case Studies

Behind the Scenes of Bold Ideas

Get an inside look at how ETC students collaborate with partners to design the future of entertainment technology.

Each semester at the ETC, students work in interdisciplinary teams to design and prototype innovative experiences—from games and tools to installations and immersive worlds. These case studies offer a closer look at standout projects from recent years: how they came together, who they were built for, and what our students learned along the way.

Created in collaboration with real-world partners and guided by faculty mentorship, these projects reflect the ETC’s core values—creativity, experimentation, teamwork, and a drive to shape what’s next in entertainment technology.

Student interacting with an interactive wall, the Flow project.

Flow

Flow follows a deer and a dancer, who meet and become friends in an intricately rendered world inspired by classical Chinese art. Players help them overcome obstacles by mirroring dance-like gestures tracked via motion sensors — a duet between the user and the technology, rather than a solo performance. 

Case Studies

Physical Presence Pet playtesting.

Physical Presence Pet

Finding new ways to combine tactile and virtual experience by creating a digital XR companion for the Apple Vision Pro. 

Depero Futuristi

Depero Futuristi

Reimagining a century-old Futurist ballet for the digital age, and presenting it all over the world. 

Screenshot from Gravitrix.

Gravitrix

Translating the high-intensity physical experience of extreme pogo into an exciting PC game.

Miracle Workshop

Miracle Workshop

Giving a beloved animatronic puppet at Give Kids The World's nonprofit resort a new animatronic body and an operating system anyone can use. 

Marioneta

Marioneta

Turning a display of fragile antique puppets at the Children's Museum of Pittsburgh into a intuitive and engaging digital experience for kids. 

PlayStation Blacklight

PlayStation Backlight

Pushing the limits of a new Playstation product through rapid prototyping, and doing it so well it turned into full-time jobs. 

The terrain in Voyage.

Voyage

Designing a virtual reality field trip where students can explore together in real-time while learning lessons about the environment. 

Animatronic robot next to a computer screen.

Quasi

Building a one-of-a-kind animatronic character capable of responding organically to guests — decades before AI made that commonplace.  

Still from Decisions That Matter.

Patronus

Educating players on sexual assault and bystander prevention through an interactive graphic novel adopted by schools across the country. 

Flow projection in the ETC CAVERN.

A History of Work & Play

Find any ETC project, since its founding in 1999. 

See how our projects have pushed the boundaries of entertainment, technology and storytelling.