{"id":13575,"date":"2026-04-08T15:58:36","date_gmt":"2026-04-08T19:58:36","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/blogs.lib.purdue.edu\/news\/?p=13575"},"modified":"2026-04-08T15:58:37","modified_gmt":"2026-04-08T19:58:37","slug":"experiential-education-with-executives-in-residence-designing-an-escape-room","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blogs.lib.purdue.edu\/news\/2026\/04\/08\/experiential-education-with-executives-in-residence-designing-an-escape-room\/","title":{"rendered":"Experiential education with Executives in Residence: Designing an escape room"},"content":{"rendered":"\n
\n
\"Amy<\/figure>\n\n\n\n
\"Three<\/figure>\n\n\n\n
\"Five<\/figure>\n<\/figure>\n\n\n\n

Students of Michael Witt recently collaborated with public safety leader and Purdue alumna Amy Hess to design and build an investigative-themed escape room as part of the Executive in Residence (EiR)<\/a> program. The EiR program\u2014part of Residential Academic Initiatives within University Residences\u2014brings distinguished alumni back to live on campus and mentor students, participate in classroom discussions, and share insights from their careers.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Director Hess<\/a> graduated from Purdue in 1989 and worked for 29 years in various roles for the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI), from special agent to executive assistant director, including the investigation of the Oklahoma City bombing and capture of Timothy McVeigh in 1995. She is currently the executive director of homeland security for the state of Kentucky. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Witt, a professor in Purdue Libraries and School of Information Studies, works with many of the visiting executives to create experiential education opportunities for the students in the Engineering in the World of Data Learning Community<\/a>, such as last month\u2019s escape room.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In her consultation with Witt and his students, Hess presented four types of cases that she worked on in her career that might be suitable for an escape room: robbery, domestic terrorism, ransomware attacks, and kidnapping.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

What scenario did the students choose for their escape room?<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Purdue Pete and the men\u2019s basketball coach, Matt Painter, have been kidnapped! Much of the team\u2019s recent success on the court could be attributed to the development of PeteGPT\u2014an artificial intelligence tool that can predict what plays an opposing team will run in a game. A ransom note demands the source code to PeteGPT or else the kidnappers will compel Painter to switch teams and coach for rival Indiana University. The consequences for Purdue Pete are unclear but equally ominous.<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Following the engineering design process<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n

\n
\"Three<\/figure><\/div>\n\n\n

The students elected a team leader and proceeded to apply the engineering design process to the challenge: defining the problem, brainstorming different designs, selecting a design to develop into a prototype, and then iterating to evaluate and optimize it. In the course of doing research for the project, the team visited Mission: Breakout Lafayette<\/a> and played two of their escape rooms to gather ideas and work together from a shared experience. They were also able to interview the owner and game room designer, Eric Simons, and to continue to consult with Hess as they developed the storyline and design for their escape room.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cIt was energizing,\u201d Hess said about the collaboration. \u201cIt was so fun to watch them put together puzzles that other people could solve.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Students took the initial concept and developed it into a fully immersive experience, incorporating clues, red herrings, and misleading leads to mirror the complexity of real investigations. Hess noted that solving investigative puzzles rarely happens quickly or easily, making the students\u2019 thoughtful design and attention to detail especially impressive.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Although Hess provided guidance and shared insights from her career, she emphasized that the students did the hard work of designing the narrative, building the puzzles, and bringing the escape room to life. For her, the most rewarding part of the experience was seeing how the students transformed a simple investigative scenario into a complex and engaging challenge.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Staff from University Residences and Libraries and School of Information Studies participated in a playtest of the team\u2019s prototype before the escape room opened for two days for other students in the learning community to play.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

It\u2019s not all fun and games<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n

\n
\"Michael<\/figure><\/div>\n\n\n

The experience was \u201cmore fun than a barrel of monkeys,\u201d said Witt, \u201cbut it\u2019s important to emphasize the pedagogy behind the fun we were having.\u201d He outlined and incorporated learning objectives for both the design team and the students who played the escape room. \u201cMy students took ownership of the project and made all of the important decisions in the process. They started with eight different ideas and narrowed it down to one that they developed and successfully implemented.\u201d <\/p>\n\n\n\n

The escape room project is one example of experiential education<\/a> and a growing movement at Purdue to enable students to gain knowledge and skills through direct experience, the application of theory to practice, and reflection. Residential Academic Initiatives and EiR Director Bryan Austin explains, \u201cWhile it\u2019s fun on the surface, this kind of experiential learning helps students connect what they\u2019re learning with the real-world insights and experiences of our visiting executives.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\n\n\n\n

Learning objectives for the design team:<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

    \n
  • Apply the engineering design process to a real system by designing, prototyping, testing, evaluating, and delivering an escape room<\/li>\n\n\n\n
  • Identify and utilize the individual strengths & expertise of team members, in particular, Director Hess<\/li>\n\n\n\n
  • Assert ownership, lead, collaborate, and communicate effectively as a team to plan & manage the project to a successful conclusion<\/li>\n\n\n\n
  • Apply lessons learned from the experience (e.g., the joys & frustrations of engineering) to future opportunities and professional practice<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n\n\n\n

    Learning objectives for players:<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

      \n
    • Apply skills learned from class to identify & solve problems, in particular, related to data science & AI<\/li>\n\n\n\n
    • Demonstrate effective team communication<\/li>\n\n\n\n
    • Establish efficient role differentiation and collaborative decision-making<\/li>\n\n\n\n
    • Reflect on strengths of performance and opportunities for improvement<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n\n\n\n
      \n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

      Students of Michael Witt recently collaborated with public safety leader and Purdue alumna Amy Hess to design and build an investigative-themed escape room as part of the Executive in Residence (EiR) program. The EiR program\u2014part of Residential Academic Initiatives within University Residences\u2014brings distinguished alumni back to live on campus and mentor students, participate in classroom […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":166,"featured_media":13580,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"footnotes":"","_links_to":"","_links_to_target":""},"categories":[13,13101],"tags":[13102],"class_list":["post-13575","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-general","category-news-and-announcements","tag-general"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/blogs.lib.purdue.edu\/news\/files\/2026\/04\/P3091086-scaled.jpg?fit=2560%2C1920&ssl=1","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/pT6ms-3wX","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.lib.purdue.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13575","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.lib.purdue.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.lib.purdue.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.lib.purdue.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/166"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.lib.purdue.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=13575"}],"version-history":[{"count":7,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.lib.purdue.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13575\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":13590,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.lib.purdue.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13575\/revisions\/13590"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.lib.purdue.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/13580"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.lib.purdue.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=13575"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.lib.purdue.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=13575"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.lib.purdue.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=13575"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}