Go Steelers!

Jiyoung hosted a Superbowl party today that was well attended by west coast ETCers, past and present. She also had an ample supply of 3D glasses for the half time commercials. Thanks Jiyoung!

Welcome ETC SV Spring of 2009!

Classes started up again last week, and we're welcoming five new students, four returns from last term, two returnees from last Spring, and an alum!

Here's the entire group, including Jiyoung and me


Team Seesaw - researching some interesting ways to do skill balancing in MMORPGs. And rooting for the Steelers.


Team Trino - continuing development of the Trino game from Spring '08

Final Presentations - Done!

Congratulations to our Fall 2008 class! Yesterday were final presentations, and the teams presented to about 40 guests in the audience, including our own Don Marinelli. Great jobs, all the way around.

Tea & Sugar Train Team


Team Hatch

ICEC in Pittsburgh

We all headed back to CMU last week to attend the International Conference on Entertainment Computing (ICEC). The ETC was one of the sponsors, and put on a great event. Some of the highlights included a great talk by the ETC's own Jesse Schell, the presentation of the Randy Pauche award to Ed Catmull followed by Ed sharing his insights, and an entertaining lunchtime talk from Anthony Daniels (C3PO), and Stan Szymanski of Sony Imageworks sharing some behind-the-scene secrets from the studio. Not to mention an open house at the ETC and the opportunity to see Don's newest acquisition: a lifesize Princess Leia in the hallway.

After the conference, the Tea & Sugar Train team visited the USS Requin at the Carnegie Science Center to see how the interactive displays done by ETC there work.

Welcome ETC SV Fall of 2008!

School started today! After a tour of the EA campus, and before lunch, we took our group photos.
Here's the whole crew:

Top row: Taefun, Carl (faculty), Trent
Middle row: Linhan, Sunny, Youngwook, Rick, Jiyoung (faculty)
Bottom row: Michelle (staff), Shih-Han, Siyang

The Australia Project team:

Also working on the team, but based in Osaka, is Ben (not pictured here, obviously!).

The Global Imagination team:

Spring 2008 - Final Presentations

Team photos taken right before their final presentations.

Project CA - Cultural Awareness. In 14 weeks they produced a four minute animated film about cultural awareness in the workplace.


The Trino Team conceptualized, designed and built an XBOX game in one semester.

Play Day in San Francisco

A bit of R&R was in order after a month of intense work by both teams, so Jiyoung organized a tour of San Francisco for everyone. We enjoyed the view of the City By The Bay from atop Twin Peaks, walked under the Golden Gate Bridge, hit the beach, and finished up on Alcatraz.

Atop Twin Peaks


The beach, City Hall and the Golden Gate Bridge


Heading out to Alacatraz

Welcome ETC SV Spring of 2008!

Quickly shot team photos as everyone gets moved in to our cubes at Electronic Arts.

The Animation Team will be creating an animated film about cultural differences. Over the holiday break they recorded dozens of hours of interviews that will be the basis for the soundtrack.


XBOX Project Team. Design of the game starts today.