Thrill Club’s escape room is a loving ode to spooky season
From October 23rd to 31st, 2023, the Toronto Metropolitan University (TMU) Thrill Club hosted a Tunnel of Love-themed escape room at TMU’s Design Fabrication Zone (DFZ). The room featured two chambers with a variety of puzzles that had to be completed within the 60-minute time limit. The puzzles included matching numerous keys to locks, pulling on ropes, and the audience favourite; rotating a series of pipes, made from cast-off pool noodles, to change the flow of “water” running through the puzzle. Thrill Club members designed, built, and tested the escape room off-site, before rebuilding it on the second floor of the DFZ headquarters at 110 Bond Street in time for Halloween.
The escape room's challenges involved a variety of electronic and mechanical components, controlled by nineteen arduinos and hundreds of feet of low-voltage wiring.
An on-campus attraction had been on the club’s radar for some time before president Jake Fulton and two other engineers took the plunge in August 2023. Based on its potential to attract new membership and the proven construction of escape rooms by theme park engineering groups at other universities, the project seemed like a perfect fit. Fulton estimates that he has personally completed hundreds of escape rooms. “I spent two years on a national tour [with a theatrical production],” he says, “and while I was on that tour I basically did as many escape rooms as I could in every city we stopped in.” The “Haunted Tunnel of Love” theme came from a desire for simplicity and fun, and the club’s feeling that spooky themes and escape rooms were naturally compatible. “We threw out a whole bunch of ideas for attractions,” says Fulton, “and ‘Tunnel of Love’ just stuck.”
The Thrill Club combined expertise in engineering and creative fields alike to come up with the escape room's challenges, such as this tangram puzzle.
The room’s development team drew from expertise in mechatronics, mechanical and computer engineering, theatre production, digital media, and business technology management, which Fulton feels reflects the uniquely interdisciplinary nature of both the club and the broader attractions industry. The team was occasionally challenged by differing communication styles between the technically-driven engineers, and the more conceptually-focused designers. However, Fulton believes this is one of the club’s greatest assets. “People don’t always get a chance to work with that other mindset,” he says.
The Thrill Club team also employed their expertise in safe design philosophy to ensure the experience was truly all fun and games. A ride technician and safety inspector himself, Fulton expressed total confidence in the room’s safety. “The walls are professional theatre flats, so they’re designed to stand up on set and be safe,” he says. “All the electronics are low-voltage, and everything gets unplugged and turned off at the end of the day.” In addition, the team was able to draw on the expertise of Dr. Kathryn Woodcock, lead researcher at TMU’s Tools for Holistic Ride Inspection Learning and Leadership Laboratory (THRILL Lab), which studies the safety and accessibility of amusement park rides.
Originally founded in 2010, the TMU Thrill Club enjoyed years of field activities and industry relationships before COVID-19 forced campuses to close and international travel to be restricted. Fulton, who worked in live theatre for a decade before enrolling in TMU’s undergraduate mechatronics engineering program, partnered with Woodcock to revive the Thrill Club and to bring a team to TMU’s 2022 Thrill Design Invitational in Orlando, FL
The Thrill Design Invitational – an event Woodcock has produced for Universal Creative since 2016 – provides contestants the opportunity to demonstrate their concepts for themed and interactive attractions to industry leaders and experts. Student teams are invited to participate in challenges, designed by Woodcock, in general attraction design, mechanics, and accessibility, among others. Although the competition is heavily subsidized by Universal, there are still costs to cover; this year’s escape room served as a fundraiser for the Thrill Club to attend this year’s Invitational, where they will not only compete for bragging rights, but also for career growth opportunities, including the chance for Universal to choose their work for patent development. “It’s a pretty cool thing to have on your resume,” explains Fulton, who himself is moving on to an internship with Universal Creative in early 2024.
Everyone on the escape room team pitched in to help with eerie details and decorations.
The Thrill Club had no trouble selling tickets to the escape room, and they intend to put it on again next year. They also intend to take full advantage of their industry connections, afforded to them by Woodcock’s involvement, to pursue educational and professional development opportunities for their membership. For example, Ontario’s Technical Standards and Safety Authority, the province’s theme park safety regulator, offers the club’s members an opportunity to shadow its safety inspections of the rides at the Canadian National Exhibition. This winter, the club intends to host alumni guest speakers, and educational workshops with experts in the field. In 2022, the club hosted an attraction design workshop with industry leader Mark Stepanian, President and Chief Experience Officer of CAVU Designwerks. “[Stepanian] donated his time, which was incredible because in the industry he’s huge,” says Fulton. “Industry generosity has made so much possible for us.” Admission fees for the workshop were donated to Give Kids the World Village, a charity that provides critically ill children and their families weeklong, cost-free vacations, sponsored by the attractions industry operators, manufacturers, and suppliers.
Looking ahead, the club will see where its interdisciplinary team and their passions will take them next. “We have lots of opportunities, so it depends on how the makeup of the team changes and what our members are interested in,” says Fulton. “We can do stuff that’s heavier on engineering, but if our club suddenly becomes all architecture members then we have architecture firms that can advise us as well.”
To keep up with the Thrill Club, follow them on Instagram at @tmuthrillclub (external link) . If you’re interested in getting involved, send an email to thrillclub@torontomu.ca.
The TMU Thrill Club would like to thank the TMU Design Fabrication Zone, Dr. Kathryn Woodcock and the THRILL Lab, the Technical Standards and Safety Authority, and everyone who made a booking at this year’s escape room.