Otronicon: The coolness continues

Jeff Stanford, the Orlando Science Center’s vice president of communications, admitted that performance anxiety is a real threat to the staff when they’re planning Otronicon. There’s a need to each year top what was done before.

So far, they’ve managed to do it.

This year, one of the founding sponsors, Full Sail University, ended its five-year run so its staff could focus on other objectives. That could have been a real setback. But it opened the door for the University of Central Florida and its Florida Interactive Entertainment Academy to come in with new workshops and ideas. And the arrival of EA Sports, Stanford told me, made Otronicon “like a new show.”

Even so, Otronicon has continued to focus on career opportunities. Many exhibits, especially the medical and flight simulators, clearly highlight career paths. Posters throughout the center are designed to help kids match their interests and skills to jobs in the gaming and simulation businesses.

It’s this ability to connect the fun to the fundamental that makes OSC an important part of the community. And when I say “community,” I don’t mean just Orlando. OSC’s reputation drew school groups from as far away as Rhode Island.

"Psst…let the bounty hunter win."
Orlando Science Center photo

At this point, there’s no telling what the OSC team will come up with for the 2012 show. But at Otronicon, OSC announced it will host the Star Wars: Where Science Meets Imagination exhibit starting in the fall of 2012. It will run through the subsequent Otronicon, so for 2013, at least, the crew will get some anxiety relief.

Rolled by the Virtusphere

The virtusphere proved to be quite the challenge, and the trickiest part of the operation was getting in and out of the thing.

The hatch is about three feet across. To get in, you stick your head in, and the sphere operator rolls the sphere around until the hatch is around your middle. Then you step up – a big, knee-high step – and in.

Mayor Buddy Dyer in the Virtusphere
Orlando Science Center photo

You stand in a bowl that shifts with your every move. It’s disorienting to have the ground move with your foot, instead of being firm. And no matter which way you move, the ground is always sloping upward away from you.

I think my tai chi classes helped me a little; I remembered soft knees and feel the ground with your feet. But I could not see much, as I had to take off my specs to put on the virtual reality goggles. The landscape was a high-tech fortress that had been invaded by aliens. Blurry aliens.

I managed to keep my feet, kill some aliens, and not die.

Several who tried the sphere before me got disoriented and fell. I did not, until I got cocky at the end of the ride and took a giant step toward the hatch. I think I’m the only one who fell after taking the goggles off.

To get out, you step down, turn around, and back out as the operator rotates the hatch upward.

This sphere has a diameter of 10 feet – almost double my height – and it was hard for me. It requires small steps. I think a taller person would have a much harder time. For this to be practical for military simulation, it’ll have to be much larger.

That’ll be cool.

Virtual reality on display at science center

EA Sports/ESPN

Although Orlando Science Center has put on the Otronicon video game and simulation show for six years, this year is the first time the region’s largest video game producer, EA Sports, has joined the team as a sponsor. EA will give the first public demonstration of its Virtual Playbook software, which is used by ESPN sports analysts.

Otronicon’s EA Sports Arena will feature EA Sports video games. EA also contributed video game concept art for a gallery show titled “The Emotion of Sport.” Although this is the first time EA has participated as a sponsor, another local division of the company, EA Tiburon, contributed artwork to Otronicon in 2007.

What I'm most looking forward to is the Virtusphere, a 10-foot hollow sphere on a platform that allows it to rotate freely in any direction as the user moves. With wireless virtual reality goggles, the user can walk or run through a virtual environment.

Virtusphere Inc. developed this “locomotion simulation” for military and emergency responder training. But it obviously has gaming and fitness applications also.

It's a human-size hamster ball! How cool is that?

Guests at Otronicon can try out the Virtusphere this weekend, as it's one of the public exhibits during Otronicon, Jan. 14-17, at the Orlando Science Center.
 See the Virtusphere video on the Otronicon website. I'll be trying it out once my volunteer shift is over.

Mad Cow conquers a classic

When I asked my patient other half, "If I buy tickets to this play, will you come with me?" his only question was "when?"

It seems to me that few modern men are interested in classical theater, and the audience at the theater reinforced the idea. I believe the women outnumbered the men two to one. Almost as bad a ratio as at a figure skating show.

Well, the absent fellas don't know what they're missing. The Mad Cow Theatre Company's production of She Stoops to Conquer by Oliver Goldsmith is brilliant.

Mad Cow Theater Company photo of
Elizabeth Takacs as Constance Neville
and Melanie Whipple as Kate Hardcastle

Mad Cow Theatre is tucked into the ground floor of a downtown office building. The cast and crew make excellent use of a quirky space: The theater is L-shaped, with the stage in the corner and the seats in each branch. It's a cozy house -- seating about 220-250 people, I guesstimate -- so the performance really is intimate. When characters break into soliloquy, they really are talking to you.

The cast is fabulous. Brian Brightman as Marlow and Melanie Whipple as Kate are especially charming in their repartee. Engaging, star-quality performances.

In an article about Oliver Goldsmith published in 1935, Alice B. Fort & Herbert S. Kates wrote: "this play sounded the keynote of Goldsmith's 'mission' . . . to render more natural the comedy of his time and to strike a decisive blow at the 'genteel' or 'sentimental' comedy of his contemporaries." She Stoops to Conquer may not be considered natural by modern standards, but it is nevertheless fresh and delightful.

It's a shame that such a small house was not sold out on a Saturday night. It was nearly full, but still, I had thought a play this clever and funny, performed by such outstanding actors, could fill even a large auditorium.

Perhaps it's because not many people have other halves who enjoy theater as much as mine does. Or maybe it's that not many people offer to buy the tickets.

She Stoops to Conquer is playing at the Mad Cow Theatre through Dec. 19. If you enjoy comedy, buy the tickets. You'll love it.

2010 FWA conference fast approaching

Here's me and Chris Coward
at the 2009 RPLA banquet

Photo by Karen Lieb

The Florida Writers Association conference will be held Oct. 22-24 at the Lake Mary Marriott, which is a lovely facility. The association is expecting about 350 people to attend. Most of these will be aspiring writers who are developing their writing skills or who are promoting their work for publication. Many FWA members are published writers like me, working to take their writing to another level.

Agents and publishers also attend, and faculty members are accessible through much of the conference. And of course the Royal Palm Literary Awards are presented Saturday evening. My science fiction Christmas comedy “The Feast of Stevens” is in the running this year in the published short story category.

Through July 31, the full conference fee is only $289. On Aug. 1 the fee goes up to $309, and on Sept. 22 it goes up to $329. Daily rates are available, as are tickets to the awards banquet only, for people like my patient husband, who yearly sits through lots of writerly talk to see whether I go home with a plastic plaque.

Building your business -- whatever business you're in -- is all about building relationships. The FWA conference is a great place to establish relationships that will build a writing business. For more about the faculty, workshops, and opportunities for manuscript critiques, see www.floridawriters.net.