During the week, the classrooms of the Crow Center for International and Public Affairs buzz as students chat with classmates, work on assignments and prepare for finals. But by Friday night, one room will be filled with a different kind of problem-solving as it becomes Android Ballpark, the newest escape room designed by Escape SC.

Escape SC, a recognized student organization, ideates and builds an original escape room from scratch each semester, and it all starts with a pitch — no pun intended. From there, the club forms teams to collaborate on the room’s narrative, decor, graphics and puzzles. The result is an hour-long immersive experience where participants are locked in a DMC classroom to solve a series of physical and mental puzzles until they can escape the room.

This semester’s Android Ballpark takes place in the fictional training facility of the Androids, a baseball team “that everybody’s convinced is cheating because they’re robots,” said Kate Okerstrom, the president of Escape SC and a senior majoring in narrative studies.

“You don’t need to have any knowledge of baseball. Everything that you need to solve the room is in the room,” Okerstrom said. “I hope it will appeal to sports fans and nonsports fans alike. There is something fun and quirky for everyone in there.”

Up to eight people can play at a time, which sometimes means strangers end up solving the room with each other. The club aims to balance the formats and difficulty levels of puzzles so everyone in the room can try their hand at problem solving.

“I’ve really loved seeing the diverse group of people that come,” said Wesley Harrison, Escape SC’s social chair and a sophomore majoring in public relations and advertising. “Even if it’s just random groups who weren’t trying to sign up together, they still enjoy the room playing together and solving that problem.”

While the club members can’t reveal much about the escape room’s actual puzzles, they’re still excited to see their hard work pay off. Harrison helped script and edit the teaser video, which the club filmed in the Physical Education Building basement to mimic a baseball team’s training facility.

“Getting to market an experience where the actual experience can’t be spoiled at all is a really fun challenge, creatively,” Harrison said.

Escape SC is open to students of all skill levels, majors and interests. Smrithi Ganesh, a sophomore majoring in accounting, said she loves “how curious and driven” Escape SC members are.

“You don’t need to come in with any expertise other than genuine eagerness and curiosity,” Ganesh said. “In the beginning, I thought a lot of people in it were art or design majors, and I was like, ‘I’m finance. I don’t know how I can help here,’ but just my brain was enough to unlock some ideas.”

Club members craft a majority of the props by hand, while others are 3D-printed or digitally coded. Everything comes together on build day, when the room is set up and members see their vision come to life, Ganesh said. This semester, every last detail has been accounted for — down to the soda fountain stocked with Robo-Cola, the Androids’ official sponsor.

They also play-test the rooms with volunteer students to refine puzzles before they officially open, Okerstrom said. Each simulation provides useful feedback on how the Escape SC team can make the puzzles more engaging.

“We ask them to externalize any thoughts that they’re having about the room as they go through, like, ‘Oh, this is really interesting. I really like this part,’ or ‘I can’t get this. I’m stuck here,’” Okerstrom said. “We want things to be tricky, but we don’t want them to be frustrating.”

All ticket sales from Android Ballpark will go back into designing and creating the club’s next escape room in the spring. With limited funding, club members rely most on their own creativity.

“We’re operating on a shoestring budget, but we’re making it work, and it’s really based in someone having a really strong idea,” Harrison said. “People pitch every semester about an escape room that they think would be a good, fun experience, and it’s so wonderful to see the diverse perspectives of people.”

Besides constructing each semester’s room, Escape SC hosts bonding events for members, collaborates with other game clubs at USC and explores professional escape rooms around Los Angeles.

“Even outside of the room itself, [the organization has] been a really cool way for people to find friends with similar interests,” Okerstrom said. “L.A. is such a great city if you’re creative and you want to get involved in whatever capacity, whether that’s playing or building.”

At its core, Escape SC offers students a space to create, experiment and challenge themselves in a collaborative setting.

“People underestimate how much putting together something tangible helps people bond,” Ganesh said. “It’s a fun stress reliever that makes you more curious and more interested and excited to be in community with others and solve problems. … It unlocks a part of my brain that watching 20 hours of reality TV would not.”

Escape SC’s Android Ballpark is open to play Friday, Saturday and Sunday in DMC. Tickets can be purchased online.