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This BigPrank occurred in the fall semester of 1998. It was just before frosh elections and JustinPava and SeemaPatel were running for FreshMan President and Vice President (NOT to be confused with ProctorOfVice) respectively. As in (nearly) all election campaigns, the candidates decided to make posters to inform the voters who was running. One of the posters they wanted to make was going to be a large banner that read, "Because we're better than frosh chem!" Seema started to write the "Be" in because of the poster, but Pava decided it should be written in capital letters instead. So, they cut that piece off of the roll of paper and continued on. Later, KevinEustice saw the piece and looked at it. The piece was about 2'x3' and when he saw it he looked at it and said quizzically, "Beryllium?" He then proceeded to start a discussion about how cool it would be to make the world's largest Periodic Table of the Elements.

Thus, planning began on that Friday evening. The next day Kevin drove out to find a large roll of paper, and people began talking to discuss how it should be done. On Saturday night, beginning right after dinner, the paper was rolled out and about 5-6 people began working on the actual table. They used those super markers from DOS and created each square of the table independently, including the atomic number and some other info <insert other info here if you know it>. Meanwhile, another group of students was devising a method of placing the table onto the LindeActivitiesCenter?. The LAC was chosen because it had not been pranked yet (it was only completed the preceding summer), it had a large area to put the table on, and it was easily accessible. The method that was devised involved some long poles (roughly 20') with some wacky noodle on the end so that it resembled a large squeegie (sp?). They also placed a little nail -- made out of half a pencil -- on the end to act as a hook.

Once the table squares were completed (about 3 hours of work) they were DuctTapeed together into their corresponding vertical strips (except the Lanthanides and Actinides). Each strip also got a loop of wire at the top to let the previously mentioned nail be of use. Then, the backs were heavily coated with DuctTape so that they would stick to the wall. Meanwhile, the long poles were being outfitted with ropes so that those on the ground could control and manipulate the end up in the air. Some of the ropes were woven through the scaffolding like structures outside of the LAC so a sort of pulley system could be employed.

Once all of the pieces were ready we moved over to the LAC and began to work. The start time was around midnight between Saturday and Sunday. Once we began we found that the poles were a lot harder to manipulate then we planned since they warped due to their weight and length, but our design still worked. For each strip we first hooked the top of the strip onto the nails on the end of the pole. Then we lifted it up with the pulley system to the appropriate hieght... which took a lot of effort to get it into the right place. Next, the other squeegie like pole came by and, starting from the top, pressed the strip to the wall like we were putting up wall paper. Thus, the DuctTape started to stick to the wall, but through much effort. Along the way a few Northies that had had a little too much to drink came by and threatened to tear it all down. We spent a lot of time working on this, so we added a poster that made it into a political campaign for Seema and Pava. We were still concerned though, so several people decided they would camp out there at night to keep it safe. We finally finished putting it up at 4:30 AM, and we were very pleased the next day to hear the campus talking about our efforts.

In the end, the whole process took seven and a half hours, and CampSec never once came by to see what we were doing.


They did visit the sleepers, though. Yeah, at about 7:00 in the morning. Where they were between 11:00 PM and 7:00 AM we'll never know.


And JustinPava whined a lot.


ModernMyth


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Last edited December 11, 2017 12:55 (diff)
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