UMOC setup/takedown

subPC: Kevin Iga   a pledge, brought to you by your APO chapter

Background: UMOC
	UMOC, the Ugliest Man on Campus competition, is held ever fall
term at MIT.  Candidates voluntarily ask for votes--money to be
donated to charity.  For more information, see report on UMOC.

Purpose:
	This year, UMOC PC Alex Aminoff suggested building an "ugly"
booth, as some had in years past.  In this direction we would have
little help in research, since in the past few millenia architecture
has sought the beautiful, not the revokingly hideous.
	The priorities were:
1.  Build a structure that was structurally safe (therefore stable)
2.  Make it functional as a UMOC booth
3.  Make it ugly
4.  Make it tall
	Originally, we speculated a ceiling cluttered with pieces
stretching to the second story of lobby 10.

Location:
	The structure was to be built on the floor of lobby 10, around
a booth, in order to attract attention, be readily accessible to
prospective voters, and still not obstruct the walkway.
	It was centrally-located, just west of the central walkway.
The area to be used was about 7 feet by 7 feet.

Materials:
	As tradition dictated, we used strong dexion beams to shape
the body, steel nuts and bolts to fasten the dexion, a wooden counter
as a table, two chairs for obvious purpose, paper to advertise and
identify the booth, and other decorative attachments.

Manpower:
	I must apologize I have not recorded, nor remembered exactly
who helped set up and take down the booth.  Some include: Alex,
Heather Cleary, Joe, Jon Mon, Andrew Tomkins, and
gee-I-really-should-know-the-rest-but-sorry.  As Alex would say,
"Sigh."  But there were lots of people, and I'm glad, and thanxz.

Setup: Sketch:
Location: Lobby 10 and APO office (for materials)
Date: October 19, 1988, Wednesday, day of last Pledge ceremony for
fall term
Time: 8:10, after pledge ceremony

Setup: Procedure:
	The base was to be built from long 7-8 feet lengths of dexion
into a square, with protruding sides to start a side frame.  Pieces
were fastened with nuts and bolts which were fastened using adjustable
wrenches, pliers, vice grips, and fingers, courtesy APO.  Pieces were
braced with small 1 foot braces.
	Using the same fastening technique, a front frame was built on
the ground.  The front frame consisted of parallel 10 foot dexion
poles attached with perpendicular bars at 6 feet up and at the top.
All pieces were braced with small 1 foot braces as before.
	In addition, to fulfill the "ugly" condition, unorthodox
angles were introduced to the back of the base structure, partly
assymetrical.  At the same time, more pieces were added to the top of
the front structure to heighten the booth.
	The front piece was lifted without success, since the weight
of the front piece decorations made the structure unstable.  After a
considerable amount of ornamental dexion had been removed, the second
try caused the top to bend over and bend many pieces, damaging some
permanently.
	The damaged pieces were bent back into shape and reinforced
with smaller pieces.  Almost all decoration was removed.  A comment
was made comparing this to the Space Shuttle...
	The final try was a success.  It was moved over to the front
and fastened to the bottom.  The back ornamentation on the base was
fastened to the front to strengthen the structure and give the effect
of a frame.
	Using a ladder found in a storeroom, the UMOC sign was
fastened with tape, taped as ugly as possible.  All beams and screws
were checked for signs of weaknesses.
	The materials were returned at about 11:15 pm, for a total of
about three hours.

Takedown: sketch:
Location: Lobby 10, APO Office (materials)
Date: October 29, 1988 Friday, last day of UMOC
Time: 5:05, right after jars taken to office for counting

Takedown: Procedure:
Step 1: clearing the area
	All large movable objects (not including air) were removed
from the interior of the structure.
Step 2: separating front from bottom
	Two people held the front piece while the others unfastened it
from the bottom piece.  This was to ensure the structure would not
fall without warning on passers by.
	After all pieces were removed, the east person moved his side
outside the frame to facilitate north-south movement.  The entire
structure was moved south, then laid front-down onto the other
structure.
Step 3: dismantling
	The remainder involved only unscrewing bolts, involving
wrenches, pliers, vice grips, and fingers.  The dexion was piled into
a few stacks while nuts and screw bolts were collected in two buckets.
	The front advertisement was removed and discarded, and short
dexion was placed in a milk crate with some tools.  Medium-sized
dexion was placed on a cart carrying the milk crate and the bolt box.
On this was placed cardboard boxes to be used for the Haunted House
project.
	Long dexion pieces were carried separately.  Alex and Heather
took the cart down the elevator in building 7 and transported it to
the APO office while the others took the long pieces down the steps of
building 7 across to the APO office.
	We completed the take-down at 5:33 pm, in about half an hour.

Evaluation:
	With some noted drawbacks, the goal of building a stable,
functional, ugly, tall structure was attained, with a limited success
in those of lower priority.  Although it functioned as an "ugly"
booth, it was not quite what we had envisioned--not quite as tall, not
quite as asymmetric, not quite as angular.  But from comments from
other students, we know that the theme of "ugliness" was conveyed.
	In building the structure we noted we did not have enough long
pieces to do everything that we had wanted.  To solve this problem we
connected shorter dexion pieces which sometimes made the structure
stronger and uglier.  But when the front piece bent, it was found that
we suddenly had less strong, long dexion.  It is suggested that the
chapter evaluate our dexion supply and consider perhaps getting more
LONG dexion (we had an excess of short dexion that would take
extraordinary long amounts of time and energy to connect)
	In the future a study may be worthwhile to suggest more
creative ways to make more ugly stable structures to function as UMOC
booths.  The left and right sides looked vaguely similar in structure
which was advantageous from a structural standpoint but not from an
anaesthetic viewpoint.
	Despite these problems, though, the dexion setup and takedown
was a success thanks to many brothers, alumni, pledges, advisors, and
maybe others who helped immeasurably.