The Walt Disney Imagineering 2010 ImagiNations Design Competition has concluded, but the experience will live on for everyone involved.
Instituted in 1992, ImagiNations provides a showcase for students with a talent for integrating innovative and globally diverse ideas combined with a passion for Disney. Selected from schools throughout the United States, participants use their technical, artistic and creative skills to propose a Disney attraction, resort hotel, restaurant or entirely new experience or product.
"ImagiNations was started to attract young people from a wide variety of backgrounds to become the next generation at Imagineering," said Marty Sklar, former Imagineering executive and key player in the development of the program. "When guests visit our parks, they feel most welcome when they recognize something of themselves there. So it makes sense that the people creating our attractions and experiences should reflect the diversity we see in our audiences."
Out of 170 initial entries this year, the competition narrowed down to six finalist teams from as far away as Michigan and Pennsylvania. These 20 students traveled to Southern California in early June, where they met Imagineers, toured the WDI Glendale campus, explored the Disneyland Resort and worked with mentors to prepare their entries for presentation to a judging panel. During the ImagiNations awards luncheon on June 16, they learned who among them took top honors.
The contest results were so close that two teams shared third place. The first, made up of students from Virginia Tech and James Madison University, conceived a museum set a thousand years in the future that takes a humorous look at 21st century culture. The second team to take third place, representing Columbia College Chicago and Eastern Michigan University, came up with the idea of a seaside-themed resort where most of the architecture, features and activities are themed around water. Of these teams' projects, judges made comments such as "brilliant high concept" and "I would go to this place!"
Students from Carnegie Mellon University and the Fashion Institute of Design and Merchandising comprised the team that took second place. Their concept for a jungle-themed thrill attraction, in which guests control vehicle speed and orientation, garnered remarks such as "nice blend of original ideas with feasible technology and themes."
The Best in Show award went to the team from the University of Arizona, who proposed an attraction that takes guests on a treasure hunt through a mysterious mountain. Of this interactive adventure, whose multiple ride paths allow for a different experience every time, the judges said "organic and fresh," "a unique and fun story" and "adds an interesting new icon to the park."
"Congratulations to all of this year's teams," said Chris Trout, vice president of Walt Disney Imagineering Human Resources. "Regardless of who took home a prize, each project proposal was phenomenal and all the participants are winners."
