In the experience my team created, a guest works with C-3PO and R2-D2 to create their digital souvenir. During the project, we were fortunate enough to be able to work with Anthony Daniels, the voice and actor behind C-3PO in all six Star Wars films and adjunct professor at Carnegie Mellon University. Anthony lent us his voice, artistic eye and insight as the character in the creation of the C-3PO content.

The holographic C-3PO began as a 3-D model in Maya 2008. The model was purchased online underwent significant changes to meet the approval of Anthony Daniels. It was then keyframe animated in Maya to Mr. Daniels' recordings and rendered out into Adobe After Effects CS3. A custom-created 'holographic' filter was applied as well as closed captions, then the final product was rendered out for inclusion into the exhibit.

Robot Data Cards

The guests selects robots to populate their souvenir photo through Robot Data-Cards, which are read by R2-D2's data reader for inclusion into the photo.

Each of the nineteen Robot Hall of Fame inductees and five themed frames have their own Data Card. The cards were developed in Adobe Photoshop and Illustrator and direct printed onto Syntra, a rigid plastic composite. The cards also feature an imbedded RFID chip which is read by the card reader and show control system.

Themed Frames

When the guest constructs their photo, they can choose from five themed frames to customize it. When creating the frames, I tried to keep the number low to avoid confusion but keep enough variation to please almost anyone in our target demographic: elementary to junior high school students and their families.

These were all created in Adobe Photoshop and Illustrator CS3.

Flash Interface

The guest is given instructions and interacts with the exhibit partially through a touch screen embedded in the console. This touch screen acts as an extension of R2-D2, and he 'loads' screens and information based upon the guests' needs and C-3PO's prompts.

In addition to the C-3PO narrations, there are various flash animated instructions as supplemental material. The instructions needed to be clear and quick. In addition, the guest enters their email address through this interface.

This was created in Adobe Illustrator and Flash CS3.

Conceptual Environment

The Robot Hall of Fame Holopix Station will be part of The Carnegie Science Center's new RoboWorld exhibit, due to open in March 2009. Due to the constant flux that the RoboWorld exhibit's design was experiencing during the duration of our project, we were unable to produce a physical design plan and schematics.

Instead, my team is passing off a conceptual environment and detailed documentation regarding the final environment and it's installation. I designed, modeled and textured the environment in Maya 2008. The model was lit by Andrew Moore.

Promotional Materials

In addition to creating the physical artifacts for this exhibit, I was also charged with developing the promotional materials associated with it. This included a poster, half-sheet, graphics for the project's web site and additional assets for presentations and other web sites.

The design incorporated the familiar Robot Hall of Fame logo developed by Carnegie Mellon with a new identity that promoted the fun, unique exhibit that my team was creating. Materials were created in Adobe Photoshop, Illustrator and InDesign CS3.