Fun and Interactive

We had a pretty relaxing Saturday today here at Disney.  We spent the morning working on group projects (or sleeping in some cases).  We have divided into groups to work on poster presentations of the projects we have been working on.  The posters will cover the following: an optimal tour of Magic Kingdom, an optimal tour of Epcot, an analysis of single rider lines for Expedition Everest and Rock n Roller Coaster, and an analysis of the throughput for Kali River Rapids and Tower of Terror.

We had a well deserved change of pace spending time at Camp Hardy. Dr. Marvin Hardy is a Furman grad, classmate of Dr. Harris, and dear family friend of Kate. The Hardy family was incredibly gracious and thoughtful to invite the group over to their  house which happens to sit on a lake. We were greeted with friendly faces and a Mexican feast put together by Mrs. Carla. Kate's dad was in the area for business and able to contribute with his famous homemade guacamole and two delicious desserts and to participate in the fun of course.

After some yummy food and conversation we began to hear the rumbling in the distance of an approaching storm. During the downpour we got a chance to flip through Dr. Hardy's old Furman yearbooks, finding photos of family members and friends including Dr. Harris. Our favorites included the "Harry B-Shucker" intramural football team of Dr. Harris, Dr. Hardy, and friends and the one shown to the right. We recognized a few friendly faces from the 1991 Furman Mathematics Department.

We decided that we could never let a thunderstorm rain on our parade, so once the lightening and thunder ceased, some of the most daring of the group braved the rain to hit the lake for a thrilling turn on the tube slipping and sliding across the lake. I will refrain from mentioning any names, but some were definitely more prone to flying into the lake than others. Whether watching baseball on the couch, conversing on the porch, or being slung back and forth on the tube, all are thankful opportunity this afternoon to regenerate our energy for the final stretch of our time in Orlando.

After a relaxing time at the lake, we returned to the hotel for a little down time before dinner.  We ate at the Nine Dragons Chinese restaurant in Epcot.  The food was delicious.  Popular orders included honey sesame chicken and a ‘fun and interactive’ mix your own noodles dish.  Several of us also tried caramel-ginger ice cream, which was delicious.

After dinner we stayed to watch the Illuminations fireworks show.  We received a Fastpass+ for a special viewing area as part of our Epcot Undiscovered Worlds Tour yesterday.  We got to watch the show from a small overlook in Italy.  We had a great view of the images projected on the rotating globe as it moved through the lake.  The fireworks were amazing.  We were in the front of the crowd, and even the shorter members of the group (i.e. me, Stella) had a great view.  Tomorrow we are going on a behind the scenes Illuminations tour, and we cannot wait to find out how Disney creates such a beautiful display.

Kate and Stella

That Floating Feeling

Hi! Danny and Arianna here to tell you all about the ups and downs (literally) of our day here at Epcot and Hollywood Studios.

We started the day with a behind-the-scenes tour of Epcot, which is actually an acronym for Experimental Prototype Community of Tomorrow. We are definitely pros in the field of backstage touring by now, so the familiar Walt Disney history wasn't the focus of this tour. Instead, we went with Julie, our guide, to learn about the specific attractions at Epcot. For example, we learned about the history of Soarin', including an interesting anecdote about how the imagineers came up with the design for the ride, and even got to skip a two hour wait and go straight to the front row of the ride!

But by far the coolest part of our backstage tour today was - of course - the hidden passages leading to exclusive, uncharted rooms. Walt Disney himself had an apartment in Disneyland, and Disney continues to rent out some very exclusive guest spaces at Epcot. We got to see the Mission Space private lounge, currently sponsored by HP, and also the private upstairs room located in The Seas. The room in the Seas, used for wedding receptions and other fancy events, was incredible; it had a window looking directly into the second largest aquarium in the United States, which houses one particular sea turtle that was especially interested in the colorful tourists in the human tank. Most of our group also enjoyed a lovely painting of some manatees that was displayed in this fantastic hidden space. Unfortunately, we can't show you a picture of these rooms, so here's a picture of some manatees instead.

After our hang gliding/walking tour came to an end, we were given exclusive all-access reservations to view the IllumiNations fireworks show tomorrow night. The excitement continued as we made use of the ferry boats to head over to Hollywood Studios and straight toward the Tower of Terror and Rock'n'Rollercoaster. We had originally planned to collect data using the single rider line on Epcot's TestTrack, but the once-sunny skies had other ideas (the ride was closed due to lightning in the area). So we pooled our resources to collect data for our project on the single rider line of Rock'n'Rollercoaster, an indoor attraction where the team was able to gather a lot of data.

Teams also continued our throughput data analysis project on the Tower of Terror using a process similar to that used for the Kali River Rapids. However, today's data collection included the golden opportunity to ride these crazy elevators ourselves after an hour of counting the hundreds of people riding and screaming up and down through the fifth dimension.

We were able to get some great data while also getting some new photo ideas from a few of our team members who counted the guests in the ride photos. They had the chance to sneak a peek at a few of the best ones during their analysis in the basement of this famous hotel.

Some of our group stayed to watch the Star Wars fireworks special, but only after one last fierce 3D Toy Story Mania competition. Rest assured, the 3D glasses you wear on this ride are 100% spotless, thanks to the massive cleaning operations we saw earlier today on our tour in Epcot. Scores were close, and we have certainly been improving! Others ventured back to the hotel to catch some well-deserved sleep after such an exhilarating day.

Everest and Animals and Everything Else

We all woke up bright and early Thursday morning for our backstage safari tour of Animal Kingdom.  The main function of the tour was to show us how Disney maintains all of the animals on property given that most of them in the wild would require miles of space to be able to live.  After slipping backstage, we saw how they manage each animal according to its species.   For example, giraffes have a specialized two-story building where they sleep at night, whereas monkeys have to live in a bunker-like structure because they are clever enough to escape the habitats of similar-size animals.  Each animal sleeps backstage in their enclosures rather than in the actual safari, and while they’re in the safari, Disney uses a combination of natural and artificial barriers to keep some animals separated from others.  For example, the lions are surrounded by a moat not visible to people on the Kilimanjaro Safari so that they are unable to reach the zebras.  Another such example is how they use cattle guards—pipes that require a dexterity level greater than that of cows in order to be crossed—to deter animals from leaving their section of the safari and entering that of another animal.

My (Jamey) personal highlight of the tour was being able to stand about five feet away from a 3,000 pound white rhino.  Probably the closest I’ll ever be to one (here’s hoping).  One thing I learned on the trip was that black rhinos have a problem with iron absorption.  They absorb so much of it that the iron concentration in their bloodstream can actually kill them when they are housed in zoos.  Disney circumvents this problem by giving them phlebotomies regularly, thus keeping their iron levels down and the rhinos healthy.  We also saw the skull of an American Lion, which I previously had not known to have existed, apparently the biggest of all the cats before going extinct approximately 11,000 years ago.

After the backstage tour, we began collecting data for ride output and average party size for Expedition Everest, and we also collected data on how many people Disney puts on each raft for the Kali River Rapids.  For Everest, what we’re doing is spacing ourselves out every ten people in the single rider line and then recording data on both the posted standby time, posted single-rider time, actual time in line, and then the average amount of people per party in the regular standby line, with hopes that we can eventually calculate the benefit of riding single-rider and also the throughput for Expedition Everest.  This, of course, required that we ride the roller coaster several times, but we put up with it in the name of statistical analysis.  We got lots of interesting looks from fellow riders as we craned our necks to see how many people were in each party and as we recorded information on our tablets and notebooks, and people inevitably asked us what we were doing.  Jordan got so tired of explaining the trip that he eventually resorted to telling people he was working for NASA or that he designed the ride.

For Kali River Rapids, we stood on the bridge overhanging the ride and counted how many people were seated in each raft so that we might eventually see how many people Disney is not fitting per ride in terms of capacity, then comparing the theoretical optimal output of the ride with the actual output which we observed.

We are making headway on the Magic Kingdom algorithm; before long, we should have it up and running and showing us the optimal touring plan for the park.  We have begun data collection on our new project of examining single rider lines and average throughput, but we still have (get) to collect data on Test Track, Rockin’ Roller Coaster, and Tower of Terror.  Today we made good progress; hopefully tomorrow we might notice some peculiar trend in the data and perhaps get some insight from it.  We’re waking up early tomorrow for our Epcot tour, tomorrow will be a busy day.  Oh yeah, and Stella almost died stepping out of the Backstage Safari van.

Jamey and Joey

(We apologize for this post being delayed!  Our internet WiFi went down yesterday and this morning and we had a full day at the parks!  This is the post from Thursday May 29.)

Heigh Ho, Heigh Ho...

Hello again! Hannah and Kelly here to tell you about the gems we experienced on Wednesday, May 28th.

It's Off to Work We Go

After a morning working away at various projects, we traveled over to meet with four different departments at Team Disney, where many major Disney offices are held.  While there, we met with representatives from the Workforce Management, Industrial Engineering, Design and Engineering, and Decision Sciences departments.

The Show Continues Even At Team Disney

Each of these departments use different mathematical models to accomplish their goals, from scheduling cast members in Workforce Management to designing attractions in Design and Engineering.  Every department plays a vital role in creating the Disney experience, and we throughly enjoyed getting a glimpse into that process.  The students on this trip have many varying backgrounds, but all got to see math at work in business world.

I, Hannah, as a recent Furman Mathematics graduate heading into a graduate program in Operations Research, thoroughly enjoyed getting to see and hear different applications of Operations Research outside of an academic setting.  It was a great experience to see how models and optimization play a big role in Disney's operations, and to see things that I love to do in a professional and industry setting.  In addition, it was intriguing to see how many different branches and types of mathematics and science weave together to make creative solutions.

For me, Kelly, a rising junior Mathematics-Economics major, this trip has opened my eyes and raised my interest to opportunities for math majors that I didn’t really know existed. Being able to see applied mathematics in many areas around Disney Parks has made me both more excited for more upper level mathematics classes and made me realize there are a lot of opportunities for post-graduate life that I didn’t know were available.

Overall, we had a great experience and are grateful that we got a unique chance to see some of the behind the scenes work that goes on at Walt Disney World.

Whistle While You Work...Or Play

Even though none of us were grumpy after the long meeting at Team Disney, we were certainly not bashful in our excitement in getting to ride the Seven Dwarfs Mine Train on its opening day. We dragged the docs headlong across the park in order to utilize our coveted FastPasses for the attraction.

While on the Mine Train, guests are placed into swinging mine carts and whisked around and through the gem mine.  Riders can see all seven of the dwarfs busy at work mining gems and whistling.  It was a happy romp through a beloved classic, and quite possibly the smoothest ride in the Magic Kingdom.  Don't be dopey, it is worth the wait!

Before anyone could be sneezy, we split up for some more fun in the Magic Kingdom.  Groups rode classic attractions like Space Mountain and Jungle Cruise, while some enjoyed the Carousel of Progress and the Enchanted Tiki Room. We ended the night some delicious Dole Whip before everyone became sleepy.

We look forward to a great big beautiful tomorrow at the Animal Kingdom (though the birds don't sing words and the flowers don't croon).

Prices, Pirates, and Pooh

Annie and Jordan are back for one final time to convey the events of Tuesday, May 27, which happens to be our classmate, Jamey McDowell’s, birthday! Though we’re not at Furman, the university tradition of throwing a friend in the lake, or “laking” as we call it, at midnight on his birthday had to be upheld. Unfortunately, we don’t have a lake at our hotel (and the pool was locked) so we had to use our unlimited supply of brain power (thanks, Ellen…) and improvise. To make a long story short, Jamey ended up with three buckets of water oh-so-lovingly dumped on his head from a balcony a few stories higher. Happy birthday, Jamey!

Magic Kingdom

We spent the morning at Magic Kingdom working on two projects: our Magic Kingdom network project and our FastPass+ analysis side project. Regarding the big network project, the satellite images we found online were inadequate due to the new construction in Fantasyland. As a result, we each walked several “edges” today to and from certain waypoints and attractions to measure travel times in order to complete our data gathering. This will be entered into the algorithm that our Algorithm Team created to finish our outline of a complete tour of the Magic Kingdom with the shortest possible walking distances. Ideally, we’ll soon be able to take wait times into consideration to better optimize the tour! Our goal in the FastPass+ analysis is to determine how Disney’s implementation of their new FastPass+ system affected the standby wait times of two popular attractions: Winnie the Pooh and Pirates of the Caribbean. We collected this data throughout the morning by waiting in these two lines several times and measuring the amount of time we spent waiting for each. We’ll compare this data to wait time information from years past (before FastPass+ was implemented) to determine if there has been a statistically significant change in wait times.

Theme Parks and Resorts Pricing

This afternoon, we had the chance to meet with our first Disney representative. We left the familiar, highly decorated theme parks to travel to a large, much plainer office building, where a lot of “backstage” magic happens. There, we had the opportunity to meet with a cast member who works in Theme Parks and Resorts Pricing. During our meeting, we learned a lot about the extensive process of creating and adjusting prices for Disney’s products. Above all, we learned how much deep thought and consideration goes into a decision to adjust prices. Disney relies on an overwhelming amount of data including current economic trends, crowd levels, customer satisfaction, and overall demand. The pricing team carefully analyzes this data in consultation with numerous other entities within the Walt Disney Corporation to make an informed decision about pricing that benefits both the company and the customers. We really enjoyed our meeting with the representative from the Pricing Department and found all the factors that influence Disney prices very interesting!

'Ohana

To top off our busy day, the group ventured to Disney’s Polynesian Resort for dinner at the Hawaiian-themed ‘Ohana. We arrived early, so we had some time to explore the resort before dinner, including taking in the lake vistas during sunset.  Here's some of the group with the Grand Floridian Resort in the background.

The restaurant's motto is "'Ohana means family and we're all cousins here, so sit back, relax, eat, and enjoy time with family" (or something to that effect).  Our waiters told us to simply sit back and eat the mountains of food they brought us (it's family style, so you can ask for second helpings of anything you'd like), but what’s a Hawaiian dinner without some hula dancing? With that mindset, a group of us students took a break during the meal to take a mini hula lesson in the middle of the restaurant. Finally, after an overwhelmingly filling dinner, we watched the Magic Kingdom Wishes fireworks show from a new perspective, a dock at the Polynesian (across the lake from Magic Kingdom). We’re looking forward to a marathon day tomorrow of progressing on our projects as well as meeting with four more Disney representatives!

Deriving Solo

This is Hayden and Rahul for our final blog together!

Complicated Math

Today was probably our most intense purely Mathematics class thus far as Dr. Hutson gave us a statistics lesson. We started off in what was familiar territory for most, talking about linear regressions and lines of best fit. We got a little more technical as we talked about the interpretation of the slope-intercept form and how to make predictions using this information. And just like that we were using multivariable calculus to derive the formula.

Dr. Hutson did a great job of making the derivation very accessible to the entire class. We then moved onto an alternate derivation using Linear Algebra which was significantly more complicated (yes, what’s on the whiteboard is the easy version of the derivation). Although it was more convoluted, it had interesting implications on how to extend regression to non-linear functions.

Dr. Hutson derives the slope-intercept formula for Linear Regression

After this, we toned down the technical mathematics and moved back to the more applied math with a discussion on t-tests, a statistical hypothesis test. This led into our next side project: analyzing the FastPass+ system that Disney has recently put into place. The FastPass+ system was put into place ostensibly to reduce wait times both for guests who reserved FastPasses and for those who use the standby line by. Although clearly advantageous for users of the system, it remains up for debate if this actually reduces times for standby users.  Tomorrow we will see if this is indeed the case on two attractions in Magic Kingdom, Pirates of the Caribbean and Winnie the Pooh. We will split up in groups of two and record wait times for these ride at different times throughout the day tomorrow.

Project Update

The team in charge of measuring distances completed gathering and entering the data. The only hitch was Fantasyland, which having been redesigned recently did not have recent satellite images online to estimate distances. Tomorrow we will physically walk between attractions in this area of the park to gather this missing data. The algorithms team completed a program to find the shortest path between any two arbitrary attractions, given the above data. They also completed the design phase and began coding the Genetic Algorithm approach to solving Traveling Salesman Problem.

Animal Kingdom

Real Dung Beetle

This afternoon we went to the Animal Kingdom for our second time. As luck would have it, as soon as we entered the park it began to pour! We decided to make the trek to the It’s Tough to be a Bug show and wait out the rain there. After we were sufficiently scared by giant bugs and the feeling of insects crawling across our seats, the rain had stopped and we made our way to some of the outdoor attractions. We had to repeat favorites from our last visit, like Expedition Everest and the Kilimanjaro Safari. This time after we finished the Safari, we continued our animal encounter on the Pangani Forest Exploration Trail. Here we got an up-close view of Western Lowland Gorillas, Naked Mole Rats, Okapis, and many other animals native to Africa. Luckily the Dung Beetles in the Research Station were much smaller than those in It’s Tough to be a Bug!

Activity patterns of gorillas

We finished out our day at Animal Kingdom with a ride on the Kali River Rapids. After our last time on the ride some members of our class developed a theory that the heavier side of the raft is more likely to get wet… Well, after our ride today the theory seems to be true, and I will remember to always try and sit by an empty seat. On our way back from the park, the students decided they would try to play some of their own music, but Dr. Hutson didn’t seem to enjoy this. After about fifteen seconds of Miley Cyrus, he turned off the stereo. Next we tried “Ridin’ Solo” by Jason Derulo to which Dr. Hutson replied he wished he was “riding solo.” We weren’t able to please him until Jamey brought out some Pearl Jam.

Birthday Party

Today was William’s 2nd Birthday (Dr. Bouzarth’s son)! And we all know what birthdays mean -- birthday cake! Dr. Bouzarth was kind enough to share birthday cake with the class, which was greatly appreciated.

Happy Birthday William!

Need a Laugh?

While eating cake, we learned that in high school Joey made a Friday parody for his calculus class. You won’t regret watching this video, featuring our own Joey Iannetta rapping about derivatives:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RAOVZ4zBiCU.

Sing-a-Long in the Mathmobile

We had a pretty relaxing day today here at Disney.  We had free time in the morning and early afternoon, and several of us spent time working on the big class project of creating an optimal tour of attractions in the Magic Kingdom.  We are working in three teams to complete the project.  

Beginning to create our  network of the Magic Kingdom

Team Waypoint is tasked with determining which nodes (attractions) and edges (walking paths) will be present in the network model of the Magic Kingdom.  They are also determining ‘waypoints,’ which are locations in the park that link attractions.  The use of waypoints allows us to measure the distance from an attraction to the nearest waypoint, and then use the distance between waypoints to determine the distance between attractions.  In this map of our network, you can see the nodes in yellow and the waypoints in pink.  This method prevents us from having to measure the distance from each attraction to every other attraction.

Team Map My Run is working on measuring the distances between attractions and waypoints.  They are using the iPhone app Map My Run to measure distances along sidewalks between attractions and waypoints.  The app’s website has satellite images that allow us the team to calculate distances without having to walk them.

Team Algorithm is working on writing a computer program to calculate an optimal tour through the Magic Kingdom.  The program will take the list of attractions and distances created by Team Waypoint and Team Map My Run as input.  The program will use a genetic algorithm to create an optimal a tour through the Magic Kingdom than minimizes walking distance.  Genetic algorithms are modeled after evolutionary processes, and involve mutating tours and replacing longer tours with ‘more fit’ shorter tours.  We hope to later extend the algorithm to minimize the time spent waiting in line.  However this complicates the problem significantly, since these wait times change throughout the day.

This afternoon we collectively voted to visit Hollywood Studios to experience Disney's "Star Wars Weekend" and to grab another ride what many would argue are the best two rides in all of Walt Disney World. (Tower of Terror and Rock 'n Roller Coaster of course!) It has been very hot here in Orlando, so a later start and a few showers this afternoon and evening greatly helped with the heat. We split up, hitting some highlights including the delicious ice cream shop outside of Tower of Terror and the Toy Story Pizza Palace Arcade. 

The whole group reconvened to watch Fantasmic, a dazzling light show featuring our favorite Disney characters adventuring through the world of Mickey's dreams. Although we got a little wet from the showers, it was a fun conclusion to our day. On the drive back we mustered up enough energy for a dance party and sing-a-long in the mathmobile. Moving from pop to classics to Italian opera to Disney ("Let it Go" of course), Dr. Bouzarth was a trooper to drive the van which was quite literally rocking and maybe even sing along!

Stella and Kate

The Aftermath

After one crazy fun 24-hour day, we decided to start our classroom session a little later in the morning in the interest of sleep - but not before making a run to Starbucks!

Our group enjoyed some much-needed caffeine before picking up where we left off on our discussion of the physics of attractions in Disney World. We tapped into our calculus knowledge to find the position, velocity, and acceleration that many of us experienced multiple times yesterday, particularly on the infamous Tower of Terror. Unlike our calculus classes, however, we studied how to find integrals and derivatives when data is not continuous, and how to tell how far off an estimate is for a given sampling rate.

Epcot Traveling Tourist Problem

Now that we can say that each of us has visited Disney World on one of its most crowded days, we can truly appreciate the value of minimizing wait times. Earlier in the week, we collected data on average travel times between some of our favorite attractions in Epcot, and we used the day to analyze our data and start building an optimal route through the park. We spent lunch at Panera, splitting up into groups to examine the various ways to calculate these pathways. Our many mathematical methods included compiling a cohesive chart summing up optimal routes between data points by hand, developing a computerized algorithm to expedite this process, and utilizing a map application to show the estimated travel times.

Magic Kingdom

After the Panera run, the class headed back to the hotel to make plans for the next stage of our main project : creating optimal routes for navigation through Disney's most iconic theme park and the host of last night's 24-hour events, the Magic Kingdom. The Magic Kingdom is much larger than Epcot, and its structure is much harder to graph than Epcot's. To make sure we handle the Magic Kingdom as efficiently as possible, we created three committees - one to decide how we will graph the park, one to use Map My Run to find distances between the nodes, and one to design an algorithm to find a short path around the graph.

After a full day of work, most of the group was ready to relax. Some rested at the hotel, and a small group went to Downtown Disney to get Ghirardelli ice-cream and wander through the Disney Store.

Stay tuned, because over the next few days we will be building our master plan for mapping the Magic Kingdom, putting each of the methods we used today to use in constructing our largest map.

Report on Epcot's Traveling Tourist Problem

As you may have read recently, our group had some fun on Friday, May 16th participating in the Great Epcot Race, or as we professors called it, the Traveling Tourist Problem.  There were five teams (four student teams and one professor team), and the challenge was to accomplish a list of 18 tasks spread throughout the park and to do so as efficiently as possible.  There was a lot of excitement, competitive spirit, trash talk, and general sneakiness -- and that was just the professor team.

The activity was more than just a game, though.  The race accomplished a lot of things: 

1. It gave the students an opportunity to make decisions and create strategies that relate to a major topic of study this May (the Traveling Salesman Problem), 
2. It gave students the opportunity to collect time/distance data that they will use as part of this project, and 
3. It encouraged cooperation, communication, and the use of good problem solving skills.

As promised, we want to tell you a little about the winning team and their strategy.  The team that finished the tasks in the shortest amount of time was the team of Arianna, Jordan, and Kate.  Here is a photo of them in front of the popular Test Track ride.

Before the day began, they (like all the other groups) did some strategic planning.  They studied the durations of the shows and available times to meet characters, and they looked at attraction wait times from the previous day in an effort to predict the times for the day of the contest.  On game day, the winning group made a few adjustments to their plan and they ended up with an itinerary that accomplished all requirements in the following order:

1. Soarin’
2. Soarin’
3. Test Track
4. Test Track
5. Group Photo with a topiary (Buzz Lightyear outside of Mission Space)
6. Ellen’s Energy Adventure The Seas with Nemo and Friends
7. Turtle Talk with Crush
8. Club Cool
9. Captain EO
10. Journey into Imagination
11. Living with the Land
12. Spaceship Earth
13. Have Cast Member write “Math and the Mouse” in foreign language (Spanish in Mexico)
14. Gran Fiesta
15. Picture with a Character (Donald Duck in Mexico)
16. Watch a movie in the World Showcase (China)
17. Maelstrom
18. End at Rendezvous Point

One very neat thing about the process is that the students used a class set of iPads (provided by Furman’s Buckman iPad grant).  For this activity, they used them to track their paths through the park using a GPS-related app that kept this automatically for them.  A summary of the winning team’s path for the day is shown below (with numbers corresponding to the list above).  The actual GPS output is somewhat unreliable though to visualize walking paths because it thought people were walking when they were experiencing attractions (sometimes going as fast at 64.9 miles per hour on Test Track), so we made modifications to visualize just the walking portions.

You will notice that they did a good job minimizing their walking and crossbacks.  You will also notice that there is a stop at 13.5.  This was a stop at a Fastpass kiosk to pick up a final Fastpass for Maelstrom -- the final attraction on their journey.  Here is a picture (kids these days would call it a selfie) of them at the rendezvous point after they realized that they were the first ones there.

To view all groups' progress another way, consider the grids below that show the attractions on the left and the time of day across the top, broken up into 10 minute intervals between 8:50am and 4:40pm.  The attraction labels may be hard to read, but the order of the attractions on these grids starts at Spaceship Earth and rotates through the park clockwise:

1. Spaceship Earth
2. Ellen's Energy Adventure
3. Test Track 1
4. Test Track 2
5. Gran Fiesta
6. Maelstrom
7. La Cantina de San Angel
8. World Showcase movie
9. "Math and the Mouse" translation
10. Club Cool
11. Captain EO
12. Journey Into Imagination
13. Soarin' 1
14. Soarin' 2
15. Living with the Land
16. The Seas with Nemo
17. Turtle Talk with Crush
18. Topiary
19. Character picture

The grids are posted in order of team finish. You'll notice that the fourth place team (orange) has fewer grid marks than everyone else.  This is due to the fact that they didn't record exact times for some of the non-attraction requirements (taking a picture with a topiary, getting a "Math and the Mouse" translation, etc.).  Rest assured, they provided photographic evidence of them performing these tasks, they just don't have exact times for them.  

1st place: finish at 3:02pm

2nd place: finish at 3:13pm

3rd place: finish at 3:17pm

4th place: finish at 4:34pm

5th place: finish at 4:38pm

Notice that the top three groups all took care of their two trips on Soarin' first thing and their finish times were separated by only 15 minutes.  

Furman Engaged!

Today was a very unique experience for us all.  Disney had a 24 Hour party where Magic Kingdom was open from 6AM Friday to 5:59AM Saturday.  A few of us decided to be brave and get there right as the park opened.  We departed from the hotel at approximately 4:15 AM! Those of us who ventured to the park at opening had a very clear goal in mind -- meet Anna and Elsa from Disney's Frozen.  You're probably wondering why a bunch of college students had the urge to meet Disney Princesses at the crack of dawn.  Turns out, the average wait time to meet these two characters is 300 minutes (that's 5 hours)! In fact, there are so many people trying to get to this meet-and-greet when the park opens that all cast members have to line up with a rope every morning and walk people into the park.  Lucky for us, we were at the front of the Furman Frozen Family Fun Five K.

After our adventure to meet the two most popular princesses, we wanted to take advantage of the sunrise over the castle and found a Disney photographer to capture this moment for us.  Well, the photographer saw the Happy Birthday button Jamey was wearing in anticipation of his birthday and decided to have a little fun.  He had Jamey close his eyes and Annie kneel down and... well, I think this picture will explain the rest (and the title of this post):

The day was going so well and we were having a blast!  But it was only 6:50 and we, for the first time ever, didn't know what to go do.  As I'm sure you can guess, that didn't take long to change as we saw the Seven Dwarfs Train was open.  This is a brand new ride that wasn't supposed to open until May 28th.  Today was the first time they were letting people (besides cast members) ride this, and we got to ride it! 

As we were walking to the renovated Carousel of Progress, we happened upon the kugel ball. It was cool to play with this because we just talked about how this works in our physics lessons.  Basically, even though the stone ball weighs a lot, we are able to easily push it around because of the film of water underneath it which reduces the friction.  Without this water, it's practically impossible for even eight full grown adults to budge the kugel.

Around this time, half of the group decided not to brave the huge crowds and heat and needed to recover while others were just venturing out to Hollywood Studios.  It just so happens that this weekend was part of Star Wars weekend and some of us had the opportunity to meet Luke Skywalker!

After all of the excitement during the day, the unique adventure began as we entered Magic Kingdom after hours.  

There were many parades going on throughout the night including the Villains parade to introduce the new Disney Movie Maleficent. One of the favorite parades was the Electric Parade. Here we are waiting for the 12:45am parade.  

We conquered the three Mountains (Splash, Space, and Big Thunder) all after 1am and danced away to Dance Parties with Chip and Dale and Minnie Mouse.

Today was certainly a unique experience as we beat the crowds and partied away at the 24 Hour Party; class tomorrow is gonna be a struggle.