Day 7: No Rollercoaster Quite Like Group Presentations (But We Rode Those Too!)

We started the day strong and early by rope dropping Epcot to meet Len Testa, the owner of TouringPlans.com, for our first guest speaker. During the talk, we learned a lot about his background, his company, and the story behind its creation. I was especially surprised by how Len transformed a common vacation problem -long wait times at Disney parks - into the topic of his master’s thesis and eventually an entire company built around solving it. By collecting large amounts of data and applying computer science and mathematics, his team is able to predict ride and restaurant wait times, estimate crowd levels, and create personalized touring plans for different demographics and guest needs. It was really interesting to see how math and technology can be used in such a practical way to improve the guest experience at Disney parks.

The 2026 Cohort with Len Testa!

When the talk was over, smaller groups split up to get lunch, ride attractions, and walk around the world showcase. This month at Epcot is the Flower and Garden Festival; all around the park, there are different kiosks and food stations with yummy, unique spring foods from all over the world. Right before we left, we realized that Soarin’ across America was open for previews for annual passholders, which is us! Soarin’ across America is a special program replacing the normal Soarin’ across the World for a limited time, celebrating America’s 250th birthday. It was such an amazing experience to walk onto Soarin’ and be among the first to see the new program. Patrick Warburton of The Emperor’s New Groove fame, who filmed the original pre-show safety announcement for Soarin’ across the World, filmed a new segment to be included in the program. 

The Anh's group in Japan (Epcot's version!)

Della's group on Guardians of the Galaxy: Cosmic Rewind

The group on Soarin' across America

After a short break in the hotel to freshen up, we got right to class! Continuing with topics we were introduced to during our first day in Orlando about states and decisions, we learned how to turn decision-making into a linear mathematical model to achieve a goal. The example we used in class was determining how Disney decided how many Buzz Lightyear and Woody toys to make. This technique is also really useful in solving larger optimization problems where companies, like Disney, want to maximize their profits with resource constraints. 

After our class period, we got started on our FIRST round of presentations! As the professors have told us, one of the biggest improvements students see from this experience is in their presentation skills: good becomes great. So, after about twenty minutes to run through everything one last time, each team presented their work to the rest of the group. Although we all know the premise of the project, we presented our work as if we were standing in front of Disney executives (no pressure, right?), and the rest of the group gave feedback so that whenever someone outside of our group does get to see our work, they can understand everything. Everyone was a little nervous, but all of the presentations went well! Everyone got valuable feedback, ranging from small structural changes to the color of the data points on graphs. Each group had unique strengths and insights, so it was interesting, even after having worked on basically the same project, to see everyone’s different perspectives. 

Dylan, Cassie, and Aidan

Luke, Mara, Harrison, and Isabella

The Anh, Ashton, and Annmarie

Tram, Della, Connor, and Julia

With our first project presentation came our first big group dinner! After some time to recharge, we headed over to Hollywood Studios and ate dinner together at Roundup Rodeo BBQ. This restaurant is in Toy Story Land, so when we walked in, we were all toys! Every now and then, someone yelled “Andy’s Coming!” so we all had to freeze! The food was amazing and the company was better. A group of us even rode in on stick horses. Everyone was laughing by the end of dinner!

Aidan, Ashton, and The Anh riding stick horses

Since the park didn’t close until 10pm, we had time to ride Rise of the Resistance (it was our first time, and such an immersive experience) and Tower of Terror (again), but we had to RUN across the park in 5 minutes to make it before closing! We managed today to have an elevator full of just Furman! Once we got off the ride, we realized that Fantasia still had one more showing at 10:30pm, so a little over half of us stayed to see the performance. Overall, our day was packed, but it was such a magical day!

Signing off, 

The Anh and Della! :)