What is booth?

Every year at Carnegie Mellon there is a spring carnival. In this carnival, student organizations build booths for the Pittsburgh community to enjoy for free. These competitive and themed booths can go up to 2 stories tall, and span a 18'x20' lot. As part of CMU's Taiwanese Students Association, I have had the opportunity to work on some of the most incredible booths to date. My third booth is still in the conceptual phase, but will be built by April.

2009: Post-Apocalyptic World

Booth chairs: Ellen Chou & Oliver Lam.

The year is 2043 A.D. Earth has been ravaged due to war and natural disasters. The only remaining humans have moved underground to a subway station. Evidence of the destruction lay all around. You can see brief glimpses of the society that once existed.

This booth placed 2nd overall losing by a margin of a point.

Development

The process starts in November, when the overall carnival theme is selected. Then, individual organizations select a theme based on the overall theme. Then we delved into overall concept, storyline, and structure. After that, around January the insides are carefully determined and construction begins in February (going straight until April). All done with volunteer work from TSA members.

As you can see from the video, extreme care is put into all details. Our job is to transport you to another place through visuals and audio. All of the booth (even the soundtrack) is 100% original and hand-made (literally and figuratively).

In addition to my managerial duties as president of the organization, I was also largely in charge of graphic design and signage. I created a series of PSA posters from the time period that showed the state of the world. I also created a subway map that showed the destruction of the landscape.

2008: Dinosaurs on the Loose

Booth chairs: Louise Ho, John Hsu, Stacy Lin, Jeff Lai,

It's an epic adventure! Dinosaurs are on the loose and you're transported from the museum to a prehistoric jungle with live dinosaurs, an authentic rope bridge, lots of handmade leaves, and a waterfall!

This booth placed 1st overall, in addition to winning the t-shirt competition (by yours truly, seen below).