The Nebula Dawn space shuttle has been struck by meteors and its critical systems have shut off. In 30 minutes, those on board will perish. Can you solve the puzzles and get the power back on to save yourself and everyone else? 

That’s the scenario behind Humber Polytechnic’s Escape Room, which is called Return to the Nebula Dawn. It’s a spaceship-themed educational escape room that teaches multidisciplinary teams about emerging technology. This project is a collection of puzzles that incorporate physical and digital elements together using emerging technology, including Artificial Intelligence (AI) and the Internet of Things (IoT). 

The Escape Room, located in the Humber Arts and Media Studios building at 300 Birmingham Street at Lakeshore Campus, is the brainchild of Rob Blain, project lead and program coordinator and professor with the Multimedia Design and Development program; Tanya Greve, program coordinator with the Theatre Arts – Technical Production program; and Sean Doyle, professor with the Web Development program. 

The first iteration of the Escape Room was built in winter 2025 by students in the Theatre Arts - Technical Production program. The room has a series of puzzles and each puzzle is built to resemble a system within the ship.  

It also uses a conversation AI – the ORACLE, which is a custom-built voice assistant that can communicate with elements in the room. It can be used to ask for hints, discuss objectives or just chat.

The Escape Room is a Humber Academic Division Priority 3 Project, where faculty and staff were invited to submit proposals that support the goals of Humber Academic Plan – Priority 3: Empowering Teaching and Learning. Nine projects were selected for funding, including the Escape Room. 

The intent is for it to be an ongoing project where students can contribute to its evolution.  

“Getting the escape room up and running isn’t the end point – It’s a launch point,” said Doyle. 

The room was also designed so that it can be taken down and reassembled in a new location if required. 

“We’ve been bringing groups in and using it as a team building exercise for them,” said Blain, adding they want to spread the word to let the Humber community know they’re open and available. 

Students have been enjoying the challenge of the room – just recently a class of Advertising and Marketing Communications students came and had fun trying to solve its puzzles while working as a team. 

But they’re also finding other educational uses for it. For example, Animation – 3D students are creating a virtual rendering of the room while the Comedy Writing and Performance program is looking at creating sketches that will be filmed using the shuttle as a set. User Experience (UX) Design students helped with testing the puzzles and there’s also talk about reaching out to some of Humber’s writing programs to see if they could help create a non-linear story for the room. 

The lighting and sound immersive design plus the props and set build were created by Humber students as well.  

At some point, they hope to open the Escape Room to the wider community, not just those at Humber.  

While the goal of this project is educational, the aim was to create an experience that was close to the standards of a commercial escape room. Blain said it seems they’ve achieved that based on feedback they’ve been receiving. 

“What I’ve enjoyed is seeing how engaged the students have been and the sense of accomplishment they have when finally solving it,” said Greve. 

Find out more by visiting the Escape Room webpage.