Ghoster Coaster
Project Summary
The Ghoster Coaster is a multi-person, interactive runaway minecart simulation designed for the CAVE (Cave Automatic Virtual Environment) platform at Carnegie Mellon's Entertainment Technology Center (ETC). For this project, I co-produced a multidisciplinary team of ten students through the ideation, design, and development processes over the course of two weeks, as well as composing background music and constructing physical props. The final experience was exhibited in-person at the ETC's Fall Festival in December 2021 and welcomed naïve guests (people who had no knowledge of the story or platform before entering the CAVE).
Video Demo
Video Overview
(0:00) Team introduction
(0:35) Full playthrough of the Ghoster Coaster
(2:28) Naïve guests' reactions
Note: For the full playthrough segment of the video, we allowed our guest to ride inside our prop minecart. During the Festival, in order to accommodate more guests, we substituted the minecart with a three-person bench.
Ghoster_Coaster_Demo.mp4Photo Gallery
The CAVE
The CAVE is an enclosed space surrounded by three screen projectors to the front, left, and right. Additionally, the CAVE has a square platform which can be pneumatically controlled in each of the four corners. Within this space, HTC VIVE trackers and controllers are used for user input and interactions.
For this experience, we used two VIVE controllers as virtual flashlights and manipulated the pneumatic floor as if the guests were trapped in a runaway minecart.
The Team (Team 143)
Team 143 is named for the sum of the numbers of our individual teams in the ETC's Building Virtual Worlds course. It is an interdisciplinary team composed of ten students, including four artists, four programmers, and two sound designers.
Artists - María Laura Mirabelli, Xintong (Sandra) Liu, Yongzi (Eliza) Ye, and Jingyuan Kang
Programmers - Tsai-Yen (Cleo) Ko, Caitlyn Lenhoff, Hannah Baxter, and Amber Marie Griffith
Sound Designers - Weilin Yuan and Lori Kipp (me)