Engineering Open House welcomes visitors for 75th year

By Neal Singer

A tournament featuring remote-controlled model vehicles able
to "lock on" to each other with remote sensing devices and
then fire Velcro-covered Ping-Pong balls at each other's
turrets is the major attraction scheduled for the 75th
annual Engineering Open House at the UI.

The open house, one of the largest of its kind in the
nation, will take place from 9 a.m. to 4 p.m. Friday
and from 9 a.m. to 3 p.m. Saturday. More than 20,000
people are expected to attend.  Programs listing the
events and maps indicating where they'll take place will
be available at an information booth in Kenney Gymnasium.
All events are free and open to the public.

"Crater Conquest!," a creative design contest for
engineering students, will involve 60 teams from the UI,
Georgia Institute of Technology, University of Michigan and
Purdue University. Four to six teams will bombard opponents'
vehicles in each five-minute round, aiming at turrets built
of stainless steel salad bowls 15 inches in diameter and
covered with Velcro.

The cars can be up to 2 feet tall and weigh as much as 50
pounds. With light-emitting diodes providing a kind of
radar, the cars will use student-programmed microcon-
trollers to "stay with the target and tell their guns where
to shoot," said engineering student Christopher George.

Fifty points will be awarded for each ball that sticks to an
opponent's target until the end of the round, and 15 points
will be subtracted for each incoming hit on a team's turret.
The winning team will receive $1,000. Other awards, of $100
each, will be given for "most sensationally decorated"
vehicle, "most ingenious design," "most spectacular failure"
and "best use of microcontroller."

The contest, to take place both days in Kenney Gym, is
sponsored annually by Advanced Micro Devices Inc. and is
intended to recognize and encourage students with a talent
for design.

The open house will include more than 150 other exhibits,
ranging from the lighthearted to the serious. In the crane
bay of the Newmark Civil Engineering Laboratory there will
be an experimental car that can tell a driver the best trip
route to take. Other displays will include a demonstration
of how Slime, a popular children's toy, is made (Roger Adams
Laboratory) and the role of nuclear engineering in saving
the environment (Loomis Laboratory).

The U.S. Air Force is expected to contribute a 15-foot model
of a jet fighter for visitors to inspect. MCI will display a
trailer similar to ones it provides during natural disasters
and allow visitors to make free long-distance calls in the
continental United States. Chrysler, Ford and General Motors
will be displaying a variety of vehicles, including electric
vehicles and their latest model cars.

Visiting Illinois grade-school students can participate in a
sailboat-design contest. Thirty-five Illinois high school
teams, in an event called "Wimbledon," will design devices
capable of shooting tennis balls at a moving target.

Besides educating the students who participate in the open
house, the aim of the event is to better acquaint the public
with engineering innovations, as well as with the facilities
and work of the college. Since the 1920s, the open house has
featured demonstrations considered innovative at the time,
including dial-telephone systems, model hydroelectric plants
and power-transmission lines, radio broadcasting and
receiving equipment, sound movies and television.

The UI College of Engineering is consistently ranked among
the nation's best. Six of its degree holders have gone on to
win Nobel Prizes.