Oct 2024 ETC Community Achievements

By Hannah Kobre

Over 20+ years, the Entertainment Technology Center has built an incredible community of faculty, staff, students, and alumni. Through their shared commitment to innovative, interdisciplinary work, the ETC community has consistently been recognized for their artistic and technical achievements — including, this month, sweeping an entire Emmys category.

Alumni Achievements

Martin Montgomery (ETC ‘11), creative director at interactive entertainment company Genvid Holdings, headed up the team for “Silent Hill: Ascension” — an interactive horror television series set in the world of the Silent Hill video game franchise. Last month, Montgomery’s team  was one of two named winners for Outstanding Innovation in Emerging Media Programming at the 2024 Creative Arts Emmys. 

Ian Bowie (ETC ‘12), design director and experience design supervisor at Lucasfilm’s immersive entertainment studio ILM Immersive, was part of the team behind “What If? – An Immersive Story.” “What If? — An Immersive Story” builds on Marvel Studios’s animated series “What If…?”, using Apple Vision Pro to bring viewers into the world of the show. Bowie and his team happen to be the other named winners in the Outstanding Innovation in Emerging Media Programming category at the 2024 Creative Arts Emmys. 

Katie Correll (ETC ‘14), director of technical design and drafting for Chicago Scenic Studios,  was included on Mechanical Engineering Magazine’s list of 25 early-career engineers to watch in 2024. Prior to her work at Chicago Scenic Studios, Correll managed the CAD Design and Engineering department at Meow Wolf, an arts and entertainment company specializing in interactive and immersive art installations where Correll was in charge of opening exhibits in Las Vegas, Denver, Dallas, and Houston.

Project Successes

A project made by alums when they were students at the ETC has continued to make waves long after graduation — now winning a silver medal in the Corporate Awards category at Serious Play. The Serious Play conference is an annual gathering dedicated to the educational and psychological components of gaming, and includes awards in those areas. INTENT, created by Varun Girdhar (‘24), James Tseng (‘24), Zibo Ye (‘24), Ash Wang (‘23), and Laura Yang (‘24), fosters inclusivity via gameplay. Intended for neurotypical employees, INTENT shows rather than tells players how to be more effective allies to their autistic colleagues. 

Two ETC projects made by alums when they were at the ETC  — PicoPicoPi and PicoLock — are now part of CMU’s picoCTF initiative. PicoCTF is an online cybersecurity education program created by CMU security and privacy experts, building on the world’s largest high school hacking competition hosted on campus. 

In Fall 2022, ETC students Shicai He (‘23), Jeffrey Liu (‘23), Yiming Xiao (‘23), Tiange Zhou (‘23) came together for PicoPicoPi — a project dedicated to creating Mochi’s Tale, a puzzle game that teaches basic cybersecurity and hacking concepts. The following fall semester, ETC students Shiyong Chen (‘24), Tingru Lian (‘24), Jacky Sun (‘24), Ziqi Ye (‘24), and Jerry Xie (‘24) worked together on PicoLock, a web game that similarly teaches cryptography through gameplay. Now, both are available to play online for free as part of picoGym, an online practice space where visitors can play through challenges from previous picoCTF competitions at their own pace.

Faculty Achievements 

ETC Associate Teaching Professor Heather Kelley gave the keynote address at the 2024 SBGames Conference in Manaus, Brazil. SBGames is the largest academic gathering focused on video games in Latin America, drawing over a thousand participants each year. Professor Kelley’s keynote, titled “The physical future of digital games,” explored the relationship between the physical and virtual world and the role of sensory experience in gaming. 

Student Achievements

This summer, a group of ETC students — Haoda Zhao (‘25), Hazel Yu (‘25), Iris Zhang (‘25), and Messi Tu (‘25) — were invited to present their project Beyond Touch at the 2024 Serious Play conference. Designed as a social game for the Apple Watch, Beyond Touch prompts individuals to tell each other stories — some true, some false. The twist is that the players all have access to each other’s heart rates and can use it to deduce whether someone is lying or not. “During the showcase, many guests came and played our game,” Zhao said. “Some of them were strangers to each other, but they got to know each other quickly during this 10-minute gameplay.” Now, the Beyond Touch team (which also includes Ivy Li (‘25) and Jerry Xie (‘24), who were unable to attend) is working on developing the game for publication. 

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