The theme of our room is Navigating Nuclear Waste. You have somehow gotten yourself trapped amongst radioactive material and need to escape!

This is a top down view of our 20 ft x 10 ft room. The goal is to get from the entrance door to the exit door. Players do this by stepping on the circles in the diagram, which represent barrels of dangerous radioactive waste. They can step from circle to circle, only when the radioactive waste has been neutralized by the crank. The barrels are 8” in diameter, which we can test in the future to make sure that size and the space between is appropriate to jump between. The floor represents a pool that the players may never step on. There are 3 zones, shown by the red, yellow, and blue zones in the floor plan.

When a player cranks a disc, the corresponding zone’s barrels are neutralized and people may pass through that zone as long as the crank is still moving. Spinning crank 1 neutralizes Zone 1, Crank 2 neutralizes Zone 2, and Crank 3 neutralizes Zone 3. The zones get more difficult as the players progress, and in Zones 2 and 3, the spacing between the barrels increase. The divider in the middle of the room allows us to create a U-shaped path that increases the amount of gameplay and allows us to create 3 distinct zones. With testing, if these prove to be too easy, barrel heights can be diversified and barrel sizes can also be made smaller to make it more challenging.

The mini model was made to a 1:11.5 scale. The scale model was mainly used in figuring out the room layout and aesthetics. It helped us finalize spacing of the radioactive waste barrels in the three different zones, the size of the zones, and the placement of the cranks around the room. We also were able to test out what we wanted the feel of the room to be. The bright yellow radioactive waste barrels floating in a blue pool, the cement like walls, silver cranks, and glowing green LEDs all help bring the nuclear active waste plant to life.

Continuing with our theme, we added yellow and grey pipes to the walls, to better emulate the inside of a power plant, as well as the danger sign pasted to the room divider. The room divider is used to create a U-shape, which extends the path from the start and finish doors and increases the difficulty and length of game play.