UCF class blends creativity, teamwork in theme-park project

The end-of-the-semester classroom assignment: Dream up your own miniature theme park.

Anything was possible as University of Central Florida students pitched themes that ranged from “Game of Thrones” to Greek mythology.

“I love being creative,” said Alexis Morgan, 21, a junior from St. Petersburg, who created a mock Facebook page with 623,578 likes to promote a horror-themed park.

Rosen College hospitality management students detailed everything from ticket prices to security to what merchandise is sold as part of the popular hands-on project in a class called HFT 4755 Theme Park and Attraction Management. The goal was for students to understand all the different aspects of running an amusement park — an important lesson if they graduate and move up the ranks

into management someday, said instructor Ray Eddy, 47.

“Part of it is realizing how much goes into the theme park,” Eddy said. “Everything is interconnected.”

The semester-long project helped them work together in teams, like in the real world, he said.

The class of 75 students presented the pitches recently.

One group envisioned a park inspired by scary movies called Spook City, with different lands and features based on familiar frights.

A concession stand in Tim Burton Land, named after the filmmaker, sold Beetlejuice to drink. A gift shop offered sweatshirts that read “Normal People Scare Me.”

A kid-friendly area offered a virtual “Scooby-Doo, Where Are You?” game for their cellphones. Extended hours in the park, envisioned

for New Orleans, of course were offered on nights with a full moon.

The group had been “working together down to the nitty gritty” for two months, said Morgan, who created the team’s map that showed where ATMs, firstaid stations and restrooms were located.

Kari Rouzzo’s group pitched a park that paid homage to music and pop culture where MTV would be king, ’80s music would never be forgotten and a gift

shop sold plush Pac-Man.

“I live and breathe music,” said Rouzzo, 24, a senior from North Port. “Just the ability to take (the project) anywhere we wanted was really liberating.”

Throughout the semester, the UCF students learned how to give stage cues and discussed the challenges that security and other departments face at theme parks. Some students who are employed as characters at theme parks piped in at a panel to share the

issues they faced at work.

Eddy relied on his own career, which took an unexpected turn to Walt Disney World.

Growing up in Rochester, he played in the marching band and eventually earned a math degree at Duke University. But he had always loved adrenaline-pumping activities, from rock climbing to bungee dropping.

Opting for stunts over equations, he eventually switched career paths and spent years working as Indiana Jones at the Hollywood Studios’ stunt show and then was promoted to stunt manager at “Lights, Motors, Action! Extreme Stunt Show” until it closed in April 2016.

“Now I’m teaching what I love to do,” said Eddy. “Now we’re talking about creating theme parks. How cool is that?”