Carnegie Mellon's ETC Opens In Silicon Valley

Author: by Beth A.

The Entertainment Technology Center (ETC) at Carnegie Mellon University has announced the formation of ETC-Silicon Valley, a satellite project of the game course formed as ten students and two ETC faculty members commenced project work and classes at two distinct locations in the Bay Area. Electronic Arts, the world’s largest gaming company and a long-time friend of the ETC, has provided the ETC with ample cubicle and meeting space on the third floor of one of the buildings at its Redwood City campus. The ETC students and faculty moved into their spacious surroundings, welcomed by many of the ETC alumni employed at Electronic Arts, and immediately commenced work on two ETC projects. One project involves the International School of the Peninsula (ISTP), an independent, co-educational dual language school for nursery through eighth grade students. With 25 years of educational achievement, ISTP is recognized as a leader in bilingual education and offers two 'nursery through fifth grade' bilingual immersion programs: Chinese-English and French-English. The ISTP science faculty is interested in having middle school students use the Alice program, developed by ETC co-founder Randy Pausch, to create games focusing on science and technology themes. The second project is also education-oriented and will see ETC students creating games for the new Siemens' website associated with its sponsorship of Spaceship Earth at Epcot Center in Kissimmee, Florida. ETC students will work closely with Walt Disney Imagineering's Parks and Resorts division in creating games reflecting the exhibit's thematic re-design. In addition to working at Electronic Arts for the semester, the ETC students are taking classes at Carnegie Mellon’s CMU-West campus located at Moffett Field in Mountain View, California. The ETC students enrolled in the 'Current Issues in Digital Media and Game Design' class heard from ETC alumnus Ian McCullough of LeapFrog, Inc., followed by a welcoming reception. The ETC students participating in the ground-breaking semester in Silicon Valley are Jeong Hyun Bae, Philip Bloom, Elizabeth M.E. Chung, Justin Cinicolo, Yi-Wen Hung, Dae Hung Kim, Carlos Pineda, Karin Ray, Jake Rheinfrank, and Robert Russo. Supervising ETC faculty in Silicon Valley are Jiyoung Lee and Eric Keylor.