Treasure Planet - Sigep Booth 2022
Our Treasure Planet themed booth at CMU's annual spring carnival was a true marvel of design, transporting visitors to the high seas of an alien world filled with treasure and adventure.
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Visitors could explore the ship's deck, far-away planets, and even the treasure hold, filled with glittering, cosmic treasure. The experience was fully immersive and interactive, featuring detailed replicas of the RLS Legacy and a solar sailer, a VR treasure-hunting game, and an animatronic robot playing the role of the protagonist's trusty sidekick B.E.N.
The goal of my room was to capture the scenery and characters found on the jungle surface of Treasure Planet. Most of the rooms' contents were heavily inspired by the movie still pictured to the right.
Treasure Planet - Walt Disney Studios
Working on a budget, we used ropes, paper mache, chicken wire, tires, faux and real foliage, and any other material we could find in order to give the room as much texture and detail as you would find walking through a forest. Something we learned along the way is that richness played a far more important role in creating immersion than the quality of each individual component.
Jungle Room - Foliage & Wall Art
The centerpiece of the room was an animatronic robot B.E.N (Bio Electronic Navigator). Featuring LCD screen eyes, a gaping mouth, and 2-DOF eyebrows, I aimed to capture the dramatic expressions that made B.E.N. pop on screen as faithfully as I could. Sitting in front of him was the map to the treasure vault, which would trigger LEDs surrounding the exit door to 'open a portal' to the vault as it happened in the movie.
LCD screens up and running
Servos added, along with eye covers
An Arduino Uno was used to drive both eyes through SPI communication, as well as the 5 servo motors actuating the eyebrows and jaw. A Raspberry Pi was used to control the 200-pixel LED light strip surrounding the exit portal, as well as being used to compute color of each grid square on the LCD screen. Controls were sent through serial to the Arduino, which allowed me to take advantage of the computing power and python accessibility of the Rpi as well as the low level control functionality of the Arduino.
Final CAD model of BEN
B.E.N. close-up
Structure Complete!
B.E.N. + Jungle Scenery