Aladdin Booth

Booth is one of the biggest showpieces of Carnegie Mellon University’s Spring Carnival. Student organizations build multi-story structures around a chosen theme; this year’s theme was Hollywood Movies. The booths include interactive games and elaborate decorations.

All organizations move their materials onto Midway (the site) the Friday night before Carnival weekend and keep building for only 6 days until opening for the public on Thursday afternoon! Midway is a frenzy of activity and construction for several days. Students go from putting up walls to constructing staircase railings to painting papier-mache decorations! The finished products are really a sight to see.

For this project, I served as one of five Booth Chairs for my organization, SPIRIT (CMU’s Black Student Union), in collaboration with MENASA, another campus affinity group. As Booth Chair, I was responsible for leading both the structural and thematic design of our booth. Before Build Week, I created the technical and construction drawings; during Build Week, I guided and supported our team through the hands-on construction process.

This is one of my favorite projects I’ve ever done, and an incredible learning experience that deepened my understanding of the full design-build process—from the initial concept and material budgeting to scheduling and on-site execution. It was only our second year participating, and all of our hard work paid off when we won Second Place!