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On May 31, 2008, Walt Disney Imagineering held a few sessions of The Science of Disney Imagineering as part of the first World's Science Festival in New York City. I became aware of the festival on Thursday after reading about Lucky's appearance in a press release. I found out about the sessions on Friday morning. By then, two of the sessions had been sold out. Shortly after purchasing my ticket for the first session, it too had sold out. The following report details the first session (click on any photo to view a larger version): The house opened about 20 minutes prior to the session's start. Volunteers would occasionally pass out a few tshirts randomly to kids. The tshirts were red and featured a logo creating for the session consisting of a molecule composed of 3 atoms in the shape of a Mickey head along with the chemical symbol for Mickonium (Mi) with an atomic weight of 5.08 (May 2008) - the logo can be seen below. On the back of the shirt read Disney Imagineering. They were also passing out a couple of other items but I'm not sure what they were.
Immediately prior to the show Brian Greene, WSF co-founder and noted Columbia University physicist, came out to briefly welcome everyone.
Our host Scott Trowbridge, the VP of Creative Research and Development, is announced but is nowhere to be found. A video shows Scott is lost with Lucky somewhere in the New York University area. Lucky offers some advice but Scott thinks he knows better but when Lucky points out 'the sign,' it's clear he knows what he's talking about. With his destination known, Scott introduces a film while he's en route to the hall. The film covers walt Disney's desire to create a theme park and glimpses over some of the areas that imagineering covers in order to create the theme park experience.
Scott starts off by addressing the obvious question: what does science have to do with theme parks? After all, who goes to a theme park to get in some science action? He explains the origin of the word imagineering (as part imagine, part earring) and introduces us to the imagineer's most vital tool - the notebook.
Scott begins reading an example of the typical entry in the imagineer's notebook: The vast majority of gravity-powered conveyances that utilize rapid changes in acceleration to generate varying G-forces employ one...In other words, roller coasters. We're now introduced to imagineer Ric Turner who announces he's been on more than 750 roller coasters across twelve countries. Ric talks about how g-forces are manipulated to offer different experiences in the attractions: pulling guests down faster than gravity in Tower of Terror; spinning them in a centrifuge in Mission:Space to simulate a launch; even on the mad tea party where guests are spun along three different axes. He rolls out the Basic Articulated Rotational Force Simulator (BARFS) which is essentially a gyroscope with pretty lights on it. They pull a volunteer from the audience who is fitted with a vest that is said to have g-force sensors which feeds data via blue tooth. The volunteer is seated and strapped into BARFS (and offered a barf bag) and is treated (manually with the aid of Ric) to a simulated ride on DCA's California Screamin'. After going through the loop, the simulation is stopped and Ric starts over, demonstrating the launch sequence and how the rider is impaced by g-forces as well as how the rider becomes weightless while upside-down in the loop. Ric ends his segment by noting that simulators can only go so far in the roller coaster design process and that sometimes even more crude methods come into play such as how he borrowed his kids' toys when he was working out the curves in Space Mountain for Disneyland Paris (looked like k'nex to me) as well as the erector set contraption that inspired the vehicle system for Soarin'. Summarized by Scott as what it really takes to be an imagineer is an innate desire to steal toys from the hands of children.
Up next is Asa Kalama who talks about the applications of science in producing special effects. The first demonstration involves bringing a volunteer to the stage and to have him whisper a line over and over into a microphone while Scott pans the speakers across the room. The end result is that the sound is targeted so only those who have the speakers pointed directly at them can hear the volunteer's words. Even more so, the whisper sounds like it's coming from right behind you, even if you're across the room. Asa explains how normal sound waves operate and how they spread but that ultrasound waves travel at a higher frequency and can be used to target the sound to a specific destination. Next Asa talks about how they employ the ability to change items' states of matter such as water to ice or steam and cites how the little wisps of fog are made when you breathe in cold weather. The same principle is used when creating fog, only they use liquid nitrogen which quickly turns to gas and creates the fog effect. He then brings out a machine that can create 'fog ring' projections that can travel halfway through the hall. This is accomplished by creating a vortex which helps the ring keep its structure for a sustained period.
Next up is Dr. Ben Schwegler, WDI's chief scientist, to discuss fireworks. He demonstrates that by inducing chemical reactions with elements such as Strontonium, Copper and Barium that colors such as red, blue and green (respectively) can be created. He also talks about Disney's development in using air compression to project the fireworks up to 1000 feet into the sky (although I'm pretty sure that this system exists only in Disneyland right now and is supplemented by the old gunpowder system). Since fireworks can't be projected into the hall, the process is demonstrated with a tshirt canon. Unfortunately the canon experiences technical glitches so only a few tshirts are fired and they don't quite make it very far into the audience.
The next segment features Amber Samdahl, a media programmer at WDI, who talks about the application of computers in imagineering. We start with talking about artificial intelligence and how it can be used to simulate a theme park enviornment and how potential changes can affect things like traffic flow. She demonstrates by 'placing' a cactus in the middle of a pathway and demonstrates how the simulated guests need to change their paths to avoid the new obstruction. She then explains that each simulated guest is capable of having its own personality and likes and dislikes and how they can use that to their advantage to attract guests to certain areas of the park which she demonstrates by replacing the cactus with a giant ice cream cone. Evidently every personality loves ice cream so she demonstrates further than breaking up the newly formed mob can be done by simply introducing a t-rex. She then rolls out a motion capture box which is equipped with 14 cameras. Not using the suits with balls that have become synonymous with motion capture, a couple of volunteers from the audience (father and son) are brought on stage. The son goes first, stepping into the box and the monitors show a fairly cheap-looking CGI pirate that responds to the exact movements of the volunteer. The father is then brought in and in what looks like a potential ringer setup, plays to the role way too well, when his character is actually 3 characters in a disco. In fact, the pictures reveal that while at times the characters on screen were in sync with the 'volunteer,' that at times, they were completely performing completely separate moves. Still very entertaining.
The final presenter is Dr. Anne Savage, a conservation biologist at Disney's Animal Kingdom, who discusses the use of technology when it comes to zoology and conservation efforts. She talks about the use of things like camera traps in the wild to capture images of animals they wouldn't otherwise be able to see. She presents a tracking device like the one used for Little Crush (whom you can learn more about at the Conservation Station at Rafiki's Planet Watch at Disney's Animal Kingdom) and talks about that project a bit. She then presents a much larger tracking collar, complete with GPS unit, used for elephants. A volunteer family is brought on stage and is fitted with the collar and lead off stage to be tracked later on in the presentation. Anne also discusses the advances Disney has made with understanding how elephants communicate with each other through low rumblings as opposed to the trumpet sound most often associated with elephants. She talks about how they've been able to use this information to learn about social behaviors including the concepts that elephants have best friends and they have inflections that change depending on their mood.
And speaking of Crush, he also makes an appearance at the presentation. After a brief introduction, he speaks to a couple of children in the audience. If you're familiar with Turtle Talk (especially in Orlando), you know he usually asks a child if they can speak turtle (spoiler: if you can say 'totally sweet,' you're bilingual), so this is no exception. He chooses Logan who, after learning how to speak turtle, informs Crush that he thought Crush meant how real turtles talk and bluntly tells Crush that he's animated and not real. After displaying some unhappy facial exprsessions, Crush responds by telling Logan he has some 'serious thrill issues' and asks his 'parental unit' if Logan has been drinking the seawater.
Sad to say the presentation is now over. One final progress check reveals the volunteer family has been tracked to Washington Square park where they are standing with Lucky. On the way out, guests are given complimentary gifts like an environmentality rubik's cube, a DVD of Disney's Sacred Planet, a button commemorating the opening of the Finding Nemo Submarine Voyage at Disneyland, a 14 day pass to Disney's ToonTown and a notebook featuring the logo for the presentation. Unfortunately most of these items are placed upon a table where everyone is free to just grab what they want which created a HUGE mob of people blocking access in and out of the hall. You would think Disney would realize this inevitable problem and could have responded better simply by offering gift bags to each guest (I guess their AI simulator missed this one).
Here are a few shots of Lucky and Scott as they come out and perform the opening segment for the next performance of the presentation. Unfortunately it began to rain and rain hard so number of photos and quality of them are limited:
And a few other photos from the event (before it began pouring). Here's Snook the sloth, host of PBS's It's a Big Big World (he was great, talking with his fans and spending extra time with them):
And some photos of high school students and their robots who participated in a FIRST (For Inspiration and Recognition of Science and Technology) competition where teams receive a selection of parts and have to build a robot to perform a common task to compete against each other. These robots were built to play a form of basketball where some pick up the ball off the ground and lift it to the basket while others lob the ball.
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