Welcome friends, parishioners and judges to my portfolio from Sorcerer's Apprentice Season 7. For those who don't know, I have been involved in a team imagineering competition for the last few months. For more info on the competition, check out my previous post team-imagineering-and-a-competition.html. As you can see, I try to connect people from my life to the imagineering that I have taken-up as a hobby (so if I'm chosen for the playoffs, there will be some outside the WDWMagic forums that will be watching). As this is my first imagineering competition on the Imagineering Forums, my plan was to just enjoy the game and get used to imagineering. As my portfolio will show, though, I have contributed much to the game and thus, I believe, deserve a spot in the playoffs. Here is a listing of all my teams' projects (along with the results): Stanza 1 Addition of Little Mexico and Chinatown to Disneyland’s Main Street USA on opening day (result: tied for 2nd) Stanza 2 Changing the Disney MGM Studios Backlot Tour to Narnia and Nightmare Before Christmas (result: 3rd) Stanza 3 Memes (result: 1st...and I was on retreat) Stanza 4 Re-imagining of Indiana Jones: Temple of Doom coaster at DLP (result: 1st) Stanza 5 Design a Land for a Park Focused on Video Games (result: 3rd) Stanza 6 Design a Land for a 20th Century Studios Park in Dubai (result: 1st) Stanza 7 Design an Arcade (and Pinball Machine) for a Theme Park in Dubai (result: 2nd) Stanza 8 Design an Attraction with a Restaurant for a Theme Park in Dubai (result: 1st) Stanza 9 Design an Attraction to replace Jimmy Neutron's Nicktoon Blast (result: 1st) Stanza 10 Design a Musical to replace Hercules & Xena Show (Project Manager; result: 1st) Stanza 11 Design a Land to replace Harry Potter at USF (result: 3rd) Stanza 12 Design a Pavilion at EPCOT Center that changes over the years (result: 2nd) Stanza 13 Design a different Frontierland for a Blue Sky Disneyland (result: TBD) 1. What did you feel were your Top 5 contributions to the game and why? Stanza 7 (Hanna-Barbera Arcade)—as an avid fan of Hanna-Barbera cartoons, I decided to take responsibility for developing two of the main attractions for our arcade. One was the Secret Squirrel escape room. I thought through logic puzzles and tasks for the guests to do in that room in order to escape. I also designed the Wacky Racing augmented reality attraction. I only became familiar with some of the other AR racing technologies from what my teammates had mentioned in the brainstorming. I even designed a custom race track that would be used in the attraction. Both attractions were well-received and almost helped my team to a victory. Stanza 10 (“Trial of Terror” Musical)—our team needed a Project Manager when the one who had been assigned said he needed to step down. The timing seemed right for me to volunteer to do it, especially as some of my teammates (who are generally pretty active in the game) were busy that week. Although it could have been done in summary fashion, I ended up writing most of the script and some of the song lyrics for the musical. I also was the one who suggested the playbill format for our final product. Below is an illustration I put together focusing on the 8 "puppet" jurors (who would be joined by 4 audience jurors). Stanza 12 (“The World Above” Pavilion)--my availability was a little limited for this stanza (as I was at a conference), so I took one of the minor attractions at our air/aviation pavilion--a film and walk-through exhibit of aviation history called “The Sky was Their Limit.” Relying on my transportation background, I specified the content of the film and exhibit giving extra detail to an airport design area (see below for the Runway Design example), which enters into more of the edutainment focus of EPCOT Center. At my teammates’ suggestion, the film and exhibit was revised in 1996 to feature the character of Ludwig Von Drake and make the airport design stations interactive (through the use of kiosks). Although we missed out on first place, my part was praised by the judges as being the best fit for EPCOT. Stanza 8 (LEGO Hidden Side Ride and ‘Boostro’)--This was my first attempt at drawing a map for an attraction queue. I used a base map that Outbound put together. I think it turned-out as professional as some of the maps of the veterans, so it shows the technical ability to make maps. Although we did not put together a map for the attraction itself (as there was some miscommunication), we did enough on our project to get the victory. I also helped to create the backstory for the attraction by creating visual aids that were used in the queue. Brainstorming--Starting with Stanza 4 (following my retreat), my team was very successful with victories in Stanzas 4, 6, 8, 9, and 10 (with results TBD in 13) as well as close losses in Stanza 7 and 12. I think that is the best track record for any of the competitors (at least those not named Teegan). I think my biggest regular team contribution is in the brainstorming PMs. Besides offering my own suggestions (like the winning idea for Charlie and the Chocolate Factory in Stanza 9; see below for the the candy squid tank that was found in the ride) or the setting for our Stanza 13 land in a Blue Sky Disneyland), I also focused on how to best work with my teammates. I would especially track the messages and work of 1st-time teammates so that I can know how they operate (and help them to succeed if they needed some help with their tasks). I typically defer to others when assigning roles, because I believe the weakest part of the project is the one that gets overlooked. While I was on Team Time, I usually paired-up with Sharon&Susan knowing that my interest in dark rides plus his strengths in map-making and being detail-oriented would work well together. 2. Which project did you struggle with the most and what (if anything) did you learn from it? Stanza 2 (Narnia and Nightmare Before Christmas)--Besides the bad team dynamics we had that round (e.g. moving the brainstorming to Discord app for a short time even though not everyone had access to it), we were rather unbalanced with the tasks. Many of us newbies ended up with designing Narnia, whereas the Nightmare Before Christmas section had several veterans. I learned that the success of a team project requires that work loads are balanced as to the skills and availabilities of the teammates. Although something seemed wrong about our narrow approach to Narnia (i.e. having everything in the land including the two rides set to the story of The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe), I couldn’t quite convince my teammates to broaden the scope of the land. I learned that I should try to anticipate the critiques of the judges and those who would be reading the project later This was my first time designing attractions in the game, and I realized afterwards that I needed to provide more details in my descriptions. I also was frustrated by my lack of technical skills, although I made progress by creating a drawing (first by hand and then aided by Paint on the computer). As my teammates changed the name of the shop a couple of times near the deadline, my drawing was cut from the presentation. I returned to the competition in Stanza 4 with more ideas of how to use Paint and Microsoft Word photo editing to get graphic designs that I wanted. FYI, due to being on retreat, I missed Stanza 3 (The Meme) and most of Stanza 4 (Indiana Jones Coaster). 3. If you were to advance, do you anticipate any exams/trips/work in your way that would take precedence over the game?
If I was to advance, I have no time away until after the finals. As the start day of the Quarterfinals is Easter Sunday, I will be pretty busy that day (between ministry at church and time with family), although I should be able to get the stanza prompt and check-in with my team a little bit. As Lent (the 40 days before Easter) is typically the busiest time of year for priests. Therefore, I should be at least as available (if not more available) for the playoffs as I was in the regular season. I would say that I am pretty invested in the game as evidenced by this teams and results page I kept in my journal (had I known better how team swaps were to take place, I would have designed the page differently).
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