ETC Press

04/09/2022

More than 1,000 people have visited the 𝗡𝗨𝗧𝗦, 𝗕𝗢𝗟𝗧𝗦, & 𝗪𝗛𝗘𝗘𝗟𝗦: 𝟭𝟬𝟬+ 𝗬𝗘𝗔𝗥𝗦 𝗢𝗙 𝗕𝗨𝗚𝗚𝗬 exhibit during Spring Carnival.⁣
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We'll post more images and history in the coming days, but don't forget you can stop by Hunt Library to check out this amazing installation.⁣
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𝗖𝘂𝗿𝗮𝘁𝗼𝗿: Julia Corrin⁣
𝗔𝗿𝘁𝗶𝘀𝘁 + 𝗗𝗲𝘀𝗶𝗴𝗻𝗲𝗿: Heidi Wiren Bartlett⁣
𝗘𝗱𝗶𝘁𝗼𝗿𝗶𝗮𝗹 𝗗𝗶𝗿𝗲𝗰𝘁𝗼𝗿: Brad King⁣
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⁣ Carnegie Mellon Buggy Alumni Association Carnegie Mellon University Alumni Association Carnegie Mellon University Spring Carnival

04/08/2022

he NUTS, BOLTS, & WHEELS: 100+ YEARS OF BUGGY exhibit opens during Spring Carnival at Carnegie Mellon University. You can stop by Hunt Library to check out this amazing installation.

To celebrate, we’re showcasing some images and history from the exhibit's companion book.

Curator: Julia Corrin
Artist + Designer: Heidi Wiren Bartlett
Editorial Director: Brad King

Although Campus Week was shuttered by faculty in 1929, students petitioned the administration and in January 1930 the faculty approved Spring Carnival, which began a new Sweepstakes era. Still, the rules continued to evolve. The prohibition against recruiting athletes as pushers was relaxed.

And freak buggies were officially eliminated.

This decade saw some of the first major new buggy innovations as teams tried to out-engineer each other. While Beta Theta Pi (BOΠ) had introduced the three-wheeled buggy the year before, in 1933 Beta Bill Dilks cloaked his trike buggy in airplane silk in order to create a lightweight, aerodynamic racer. That simple change helped trike buggies sweep the next few Sweepstakes.

The was also the golden age of Kappa Sigma’s (KΣ) dynasty. They won in 1934, nearly won in 1935, and then won every race from 1936 through 1941, which was the last race until after World War II ended in 1945.

NOTABLE HIGHLIGHTS:

In 1931 Delta Tau Delta (ΔΤΔ) wins both the CMU’s buggy race and Pitt’s buggy race.

In 1935, somebody dumped a bucket of sand in the Chute in order to cause the first buggy to skid and flip over. However, it was discovered and cleared before the race began.

+ Carnegie Mellon University Carnegie Mellon Buggy Alumni Association Carnegie Mellon University Alumni Association

04/07/2022

The NUTS, BOLTS, & WHEELS: 100+ YEARS OF BUGGY opens during Spring Carnival at Carnegie Mellon University. You can stop by Hunt Library to check out this amazing installation. To celebrate, we’re showcasing some images and history from the exhibit's companion book.

Curator: Julia Corrin
Artist + Designer: Heidi Wiren Bartlett
Editorial Director: Brad King

The eighties marked the start of the modern, three-wheeled buggies. The three wheel buggies came into being due to the Pi Kappa Alpha (ΠΚΑ) "Silver Bullet"—which spun in the turn in 1981—recording very fast freerolls in practice. Thanks to a dominating victory by Sigma Nu (ΣΝ) in 1982, other organizations sought to copy their success. The dominating success of Sigma Nu in 1982 was a combination of their buggies and for a couple of years a single source of superior wheels. Within a few years, several fraternities and organizations scrapped their four-wheeled buggies and replaced them with faster, more agile three-wheelers.

The decade saw more innovation around wheel development, one of the surest ways to increase a buggy's speed and agility. Some teams opted for smaller wheels, others for "fast" Goodyear tire rubber, and others settled on pneumatic wheelchair racing wheels. With the increased speed of the buggies and after a few unfortunate accidents, the buggy organization introduced a new 83-page rulebook in 1987 that outlined measures both on and off the track.

One interesting idiosyncrasy about the Women's Division: while there were twenty-one teams representing eleven organizations in the 1988 race, sororities aligned themselves with fraternities, racing in the Women's Division under those organizations

+ Carnegie Mellon University Carnegie Mellon Alumni Carnegie Mellon University Alumni Association Carnegie Mellon Buggy Alumni Association

NOTABLE HIGHLIGHTS

In 1981, Carnegie Involvement Association (CIA) became the first independent organization to win the Sweepstakes.

In 1984, Pi Kappa Alpha (ΠΚΑ) built Mach I, a very small and fast buggy designed for its driver, first-year student Audrey Greenfield.

In 1985, SPIRIT raced for the first time. In just its second year, the organization won the Women's Division Sweepstakes.

04/06/2022

The ETC Press is more than just an academic press. We also collaborate with groups across campus such as the University Archives and University Libraries to create exhibits!

We're super proud of the current show.

Stop by Hunt Library to check out NUTS, BOLTS, & WHEELS: 100+ YEARS OF BUGGY!

Carnegie Mellon University Alumni Association, Carnegie Mellon Buggy Alumni Association, and Carnegie Mellon University

04/06/2022

We're so excited to see this project finally come to life. Our latest book is a visual history of the one of Carnegie Mellon's most interesting traditions: Buggy.

And, if you're on campus this weekend during Spring Carnival, you can pick up a free copy at the Sweepstakes (while they last) and check out the absolutely breathtaking exhibit curated in Hunt Library. (It includes seven historical buggies!)

Carnegie Mellon University Alumni Association, Carnegie Mellon Buggy Alumni Association, and Carnegie Mellon University

04/06/2021

The ETC Press is proud to announce the release of the Transactions of the Digital Games Research Association (Vol 5, No. 2), edited by Hanna Wirman.

04/06/2021

The ETC Press is proud to announce the release of Well Played, Vol. 10, No. 1: A Special Issue on Escape Rooms, edited by Clara Fernández-Vara and Ira Fay.

Though often viewed as special category of games, sports is really an approach to play. The popular conception of the sporting mindset puts certain values ahead of others, and positioning games as a means to an end rather than an experience unto itself. Sometimes, the sporting mindset brings out the best in us; sometimes, the worst.

Escape the Room games are popular all over the world, from New York to Kuala Lumpur, and have been created for all kinds of spaces. Although they are now thought of as a popular activity to do with friends, their origins are actually digital—its conventions derived from interactive fiction and point-and-click adventure games, and became its own genre of web games in the early 2000s. Their non-digital incarnations have taken the form of real rooms that invite participants to solve their puzzles to get out, and then have expanded to board games. This makes the escape the room genre a fascinating area of study and design, given how its history spans both videogames and physical games.

This special issue includes analyses and studies of escape the room games, either digital and non-digital, from all over the world.

The ETC Press is proud to announce the release of Well Played, Vol. 10, No. 1: A Special Issue on Escape Rooms, edited by Clara Fernández-Vara and Ira Fay.

04/06/2021

The ETC Press is proud to announce the release of Intrinsic Rewards in Games and Learning, by Kevin Miklasz.

Although reward structures have generally been successful in games, the types of rewards used in education typically impede the learning process. New forms of educational rewards, like badges and micro-credentials, have generally failed to take root because of deep-seated design constraints in educational systems; the fact that you are using a badge is far less important than how you use a badge.

This book makes the case that games have used well-designed, meaningful, intrinsic reward structures, while educational systems have often used poorly-designed, meaningless, extrinsic reward structures. Without dissecting and addressing the reasons for this discrepancy, attempts to revolutionize educational reward systems in a game-based manner are doomed to failure.

The ETC Press is proud to announce the release of Intrinsic Rewards in Games and Learning, by Kevin Miklasz.

04/06/2021

The ETC Press is proud to announce the release of the The Proceedings of the 2020 Connected Learning Summit.

The Proceedings of the 2020 Connected Learning Summit features 23 peer-reviewed research papers accepted for presentation at the 2020 Connected Learning Summit. The Connected Learning Summit community was unable to gather together as planned during the summer of 2020 for the annual conference due to the COVID-19 pandemic. Despite this disruption, the Proceedings of the 2020 Connected Learning Summit recognize the intellectual contribution showcased by the research papers’ 67 authors.

The mission of the Connected Learning Summit is to fuel a growing movement of innovators harnessing emerging technology to expand access to participatory, playful, and creative learning. The Connected Learning Summit represents a merger between three community events with this shared vision and values: the Digital Media and Learning Conference, the Games+Learning+Society Conference, and Sandbox Summit. With a unique focus on cross-sector connections and progressive and catalytic innovation, this annual event brings together leading researchers, educators, and developers.

The Proceedings of the 2020 Connected Learning Summit features 23 peer-reviewed research papers accepted for presentation at the 2020 Connected Learning Summit.

04/06/2021

The ETC Press is proud to announce the release of the The Art Exhibit at ICIDS 2019 Art Book.

This volume collects documentation of the 2019 International Conference on Interactive Digital Storytelling (ICIDS) Art Exhibition and new scholarly texts from the artists involved. The works collected here explore interactive storytelling through the broad lens of the curated theme: The Expression of Emotion in Humans and Technology.

Charles Darwin argued almost 150 years ago, the Universal Nature of Expression; which is to say that, “the young and the old of widely different races, both with man and animals, express the same state of mind by the same movements.” As technology, robotics, and artificial intelligence advances, it seems appropriate to ask how we might interpret and understand expressions of emotion from technology.

This volume collects documentation of the 2019 International Conference on Interactive Digital Storytelling (ICIDS) Art Exhibition and new scholarly texts from the artists involved. The works collected here explore interactive storytelling through the broad lens of the curated theme: The Expression....

04/06/2021

The ETC Press is proud to announce the release of Night of the Indigenous Devs Proceedings 2019.

What is possible when Indigenous people take curation into their own hands? Night of the Indigenous Devs seeks to create a place that understands why Indigenous digital creatives and video game creators need a space tailored to them and their needs. A space for us, by us.

Night of the Indigenous Devs expands peoples’ understanding of just what makes something “Indigenous” by providing an opportunity for an audience to watch live game play while getting real-time commentary from Indigenous creators. This proceedings takes that expansion even further with essays and reflections from some of the speakers plus screenshots and summaries of the games shown. It’s an evening of play and knowledge sharing brought to you in book form to enjoy.

What is possible when Indigenous people take curation into their own hands? Night of the Indigenous Devs seeks to create a place that understands why Indigenous digital creatives and video game creators need a space tailored to them and their needs. A space for us, by us.

04/06/2021

We've been quiet here during COVID-19, but we're still publishing. Here's some of what we've done in the last six months.

The ETC Press is proud to announce the release of IndieCade: A History — The Interdependence of Independents, by Celia Pearce.

IndieCade: A History — The Interdependence of Independents chronicles the story of IndieCade as told by one of its three co-founders—its modest beginnings and evolving role in the larger independent games ecosystem over its decade-plus history. More broadly, it situates IndieCade within a historical context, looking at the various factors of the indie ecosystem that have contributed to making independent games writ large such a major force in today’s video game industry.

The ETC Press and its ETC Press: Single imprint is very proud to announce the release of Dana Gold's game, Broke, and the accompany single Broke: How I Made Poverty a Game. Along with her book, you can also purchase the board game or a mobile version of the game, which was developed—in part—at t...