Welcome, 
US Finals: Day 1
FROM THE PROJECT BOOK OF MH (blog) | MH | April 21, 2008
We just wrapped up Day 1 (yesterday was the welcome reception), and it’s been a really great experience so far! There’s about 40 students here with three photography teams, 3 game design teams, and 7 software teams. We got into LAX yesterday evening, shuttled to Biltmore Millennium (our accommodations site) to meet the event leaders, Stephanie and Gus, and our photography invitational liaison, Edwin. Myself and five other students were also asked to sit on a panel for Tuesday with industry experts to have an open discussion on Innovation & Technology, so I’m looking forward to that (if not a little nervous; it’s in front of a large audience!)
Today, we had an opportunity to meet with individuals from Electronic Arts (EA Games; they gave us free games too) as well as company owners from California and Washington such as Jacked.com. It was really an inspiring and informative Q&A panel that made me think about collaboration and the future of technology with a new excitement for where I can go professionally. After lunch by Wolfgang Puck Catering, Jenn and I had an opportunity to tape a project interview with a video crew, have publicity photographs taken, and interact fellow students from our invitational in the photo gallery that our prints are being displayed in.
Later in the afternoon, the entire group headed to Disneyland. It was a bit cold out, but a few of us managed to buy some wacky hats (I got a Nemo that sits on my head), grabbed some dinner, and rode all the major rides. Another student from our invitational and I were headed to Space Mountain (50 minute wait; no Fast Pass) at the end of the evening and were stopped by one of the attendants at the gate of the ride. He noticed that we had both purchased hats (thank you Microsoft for the Disney gift cards!) and asked why we weren’t wearing them. We stood there a bit dumbfounded but did so anyways (he called me Fish-head haha) and he went on to say that if we wore them until we got on the ride, he’d give us something: a special pass to zip to the front of the line. I was skeptical until he handed us an orange card indicating that we would be granted that. To say the least, we got on Space Mountain within 10 minutes (maybe less). While riding it, four ride cars got stuck on the tracks because the sensors activated the brakes (safety mechanism) and so the lights turned on and we were staring at the inside of the ride. It was pretty cool actually, and Malcolm (the other student) and I were laughing at the whole ordeal of being stuck on the ride (there are pictures he took to prove the whole ordeal occurred). After they gave the other three groups a brake release and running start to get them started again, they helped us out and finished the last portion of the ride. The ride staff let us go one more time to make up for the technical error (awesome!) and that was pretty much made my day.
Jenn and I finished up the evening by working on our showcase speaking presentation for tomorrow by polishing up our technical information and reviewing Jenn’s mental database of environmental systems knowledge. We’re super excited to meet and greet with our guests tomorrow and we’re having innovation & entrepreneurship workshops all day! Anyways, we thank God for getting us here to LA safely and we’ll be in touch (hopefully with pictures soon)!