Engineering thrills
The Theme Park Engineering Group gives Carnegie Mellon students the opportunity to indulge their passion for themed entertainment by creating, competing, and cavorting.
If you played Roller Coaster Tycoon as a kid, study engineering at Carnegie Mellon, and want to be a Disney Imagineer someday, you’re probably a member of the Theme Park Engineering Group (TPEG). The student organization is tailor-made for students who have a passion for themed entertainment and seek out challenges that expand both their creative and technical skills.
Shirley Saldamarco, a faculty member in Carnegie Mellon’s Entertainment Technology Center (ETC), serves as TPEG’s faculty advisor. She says CMU is the perfect place to train students for careers that call on technical expertise and creativity in equal measure.
She should know. She’s been teaching classes like TV Production and Guest Experience and Theme Park Design at the University for 30 years. She worked with ETC founders, Don Marinelli and Randy Pausch, who famously said in his inspirational Last Lecture, Really Achieving Your Childhood Dreams, that getting to zero gravity was easier than becoming a Disney Imagineer.
But the good news is that TPEG members can find great opportunities beyond the big theme parks, and their experiences with the group also help them to become better collaborators.
Today people expect experiences, so the skills students learn here are also useful in the design and development of museum exhibits, art installations, sports facilities, and more.
Shirley Saldamarco, Lecturer (Special Faculty Appointment), Entertainment Technology Center
“Today people expect experiences, so the skills students learn here are also useful in the design and development of museum exhibits, art installations, sports facilities, and more,” said Saldamarco, who added that the TPEG activities also foster an understanding and respect for how to work with others that will serve them in any engineering career.
Riley Forster (MechE’23) was president of the student-run group. She plans to work as a software engineer, but admits, “If I could end up at Disney or Universal someday, that would be a dream come true.”
Source: Shirley Saldamarco
ETC founders Don Marinelli on guitar and Randy Pausch on keyboards illustrating their left brain/right brain personas.
She says she chose to study mechanical engineering because it’s such a broad field and its many creative applications were very exciting to her. She says TPEG is a great outlet for her creativity, and she has built her leadership skills by serving as its president.
“I love being a part of TPEG because the members are so passionate about what they do, and together we’ve done some really incredible projects,” said Forster.
I love being a part of TPEG because the members are so passionate about what they do, and together we’ve done some really incredible projects.
Riley Forster, Alum, Mechanical Engineering
The group staged the Mad Hatter’s Escape Room during Spring Carnival, which adopted an Alice in Wonderland theme this year. Participants were given 20 minutes to solve a series of puzzles and games in order to discover the combination that unlocked a chest full of prizes. TPEG has 22 active members, most of whom are from the College of Engineering, although several master students from the ETC program helped with the escape room by designing an electronic video game.
Puzzles and games, including Roller Coaster Tycoon, are favorites of the TPEG members who sometimes meet to play when they’re not busy planning big events like the escape room or national conventions.
TPEG members at the Toronto Metropolitan University Thrill Design Competition in Orlando, Florida, November 2022.
In November, the group enjoyed their second trip to the Toronto Metropolitan University Thrill Design Competition in Orlando. The invitational event, held in conjunction with Universal Creative, features a three-day competition to design a hypothetical theme park attraction.
Carnegie Mellon has won multiple awards and commendations at the events. Forster credits the incredible work done by the designers in the group for their 2022 success. The competition requires interdisciplinary collaboration between designers, engineers, and computer scientists. And like the escape room, a mix of undergraduate and graduate students participated.
Saldamarco says that the competition, like most of what TPEG does, is the perfect combination of technical ability, creativity, and teamwork.
She knows that the saying is, “Our hearts are in the work,: but she believes that CMU just does something to your heart.
“The talent, enthusiasm, and endless energy of our students is just so inspiring!”