Engineers lack imagination? Disney doesn't agree!

Nor do Jannae Fong and Molly Martens, seniors in Aerospace Engineering and Mechanical Engineering. The USC team of Fong, Martens, and Joseph Rothenberg, who is pursuing a BA in Animation and Digital Arts in the School of Cinematic Arts, have taken first place in the 20th annual ImagiNations design competition.

ImagiNations is a program designed and sponsored by Walt Disney Imagineering (WDI) to encourage university students to consider careers in creative and technical fields including digital arts, engineering, and architecture. WDI is a creative arm of Disney, and is responsible for conceiving, designing and building the corporation's theme parks, attractions inside theme parks, resorts, cruise ships, and real estate developments. ImagiNations is part of an overall Disney corporate strategy to look for diverse creative and multicultural talent in an effort to ensure Disney stories, films, theme parks, resorts, and TV shows remain relevant to an increasingly global audience. The ImagiNations design competition gives upperclassmen and graduate students a chance to demonstrate their skills to WDI management and working Imagineers.

The ImagiNations competition begins with the team of 2–4 students answering the project challenge (from the ImagiNations web site):

University of Southern California's team of finalists in Walt Disney Imagineering's 20th ImagiNations Design Competition. (L-R): Molly Martens, Joe Rothenberg, Jannae Fong. Photo credit: Gary Krueger, Walt Disney Imagineering

The completed PowerPoints, about 167 entries this year, are sent to WDI to be judged by Imagineers. Judging criteria include diversity and global perspective; demonstration of talent and skills; quality of presentation; merging of creativity with technological know-how; emotional appeal; and team collaboration. The Imagineers pare down the field to a group of semifinalists, then to a smaller group of finalists. The finalists—6 teams totaling 20 students this year—are invited to WDI headquarters in Glendale to give a more detailed presentation as the core element in the competition. During their visit the finalists also go behind the scenes at WDI, meet with Imagineers, and explore the local Disney theme parks.

First, second, and third place winners are chosen from the finalists based on the teams' projects and presentations. WDI awards the 3rd place finishers a $500 prize; the 2nd place team, a $1000 prize; and the 1st place team, a $3000 prize. An additional $1000 grant is provided to the 1st place team, to be divided among the team members' sponsors—universities or other qualifying non-profit organizations.

When the winners were announced on June 17, First Place and "Best in Show" was the team of Fong-Martens-Rothenberg from USC won for their project, "Adventure Is UP There!" As Jannae Fong describes it:

We designed an E-ticket dark ride inspired by the Disney/Pixar film, Up where guests are members of the Junior Wilderness Explorers Tribe 54 Sweat Lodge 12, and they need to earn their final badge (the "Bird Watching Badge") in order to become Cadet Wilderness Explorers. The attraction takes guests to Paradise Falls with Russell, Carl and Dug, and there, they try and find Kevin to earn their badge. When Muntz captures Kevin, guests race through the jungles of South America to rescue Kevin while trying to escape from the pack of Muntz's dogs that is pursuing them.

We conceived the story, ride layout and technology, and we started working on our project last September. Our initial submission (a 10-slide Power Point presentation) was due at the end of March, and we were notified that we were one of six finalist teams (out of 160 I believe) that won an five-day all-expense paid trip to the Walt Disney Imagineering (WDI) campus in Glendale, CA on April 22. Our final presentation was basically a bolstered up version of our initial Power Point- we just added more artwork and tweaked the layout of the presentation. (Our initial submission was modeled after a scrapbook, similar to Ellie's "My Adventure Book" from the film, and our final Power Point presentation was modeled after the design of the Blue Sky Cellar at Disney California Adventure.) We gave our presentation to about 30 WDI executives and ImagiNations alumni on Wednesday, June 15, and then gave it again the next day to 100+ Imagineers who were not part of Wednesday's judging panel; the awards luncheon was Friday, June 17. Our presentation was limited to 15 minutes and had to be memorized in its entirety, and a 5-10 minute Q&A session followed Wednesday's judged presentation.

Second place was awarded to a team from North Carolina State University while third place went to the team of Scott Sabens and Dylan Olson from San Diego State University for their thrill ride, "The Curse of Mythica Mine." Dylan is a graduate student in the Master of Engineering in Structural Design in USC's Sonny Astani Department of Civil Engineering.

ImagiNations, it seems, is also a proven route to coveted Disney internships. This year WDI offered internships to six of the finalists and hired an additional eight interns from the semifinalists.