Carnegie Mellon Spring Carnival Committee 2016: Head of Booth

My senior year at Carnegie Mellon I received the position of Head of Booth on the Spring Carnival Committee. The Spring Carnival Committee is a student run organization that plans Spring Carnival, a yearly alumni weekend that takes place in April. This covers everything from Buggy, where student organizations create a small aerodynamic ‘buggy’ that they race up and down hills (there’s a person in there driving!!), to entertainment, to carnival rides (a Ferris Wheel!) to Booth, where student organizations compete with each other by building a two story themed building in less than a week that is open to the public (don’t worry, a licensed engineer checks to make sure it is up to Pittsburgh City code :) ) The students have 6 days to build on site, three days for the booth to be open, then one day to tear it down.

My responsibilities as Head of Booth were to act as a liaison between the student organization and the faculty and staff stakeholders. The stakeholders and faculty included CMU EH&S who required all participants to follow a certain safety code for correct personal protective equipment (hard hats, safety goggles, etc.), fire safety, tool and construction site safety. It also included our licensed engineer who had to approve all plans before being built, and all buildings once built before it was open to the public. I worked closely with each student organization to enable them to build their best booth while still meeting the expectations of the stakeholders and fighting last minute challenges (it snowed the first two days of building! In mid April!).

The theme that year was Game Night, where each org picked a game (board, card, video or other) to interpret as they wanted into an immersive experience. Some games chosen were: the Oregon Trail, Where in the World is Carmen San Diego?, Dungeons and Dragons, Legends of the Hidden Temple, and Minecraft.

It was a huge time commitment and very stressful (first year in many with no major injuries!), but incredibly rewarding. I loved booth so much the first three years of my college experience that I wanted to do my best to enable other students to have an equally magical time (while still being safe and smart - they were on an official construction site!)

https://www.springcarnival.org/booth.shtml