Posted on 04/07/2006 12:52:18 PM PDT by BurbankKarl
In the ongoing battle of the nerds between Caltech and MIT, the latest volley has been fired from a 130-year-old cannon.
Actually, the latest volley is a cannon.
Massachusetts pranksters, posing as professional movers, stole the beloved Fleming Cannon — traditionally fired at each year's commencement — from the Pasadena campus last week.
On Thursday it popped up, pointed toward Pasadena and adorned with an oversized Massachusetts Institute of Technology school ring, at the Cambridge campus next to a plaque referring to Caltech as "its previous owners."
The plaque explained that the students created the phony "Howe & Ser Moving Company" and used fake work-order forms to get past Caltech campus security guards. After that, a real shipping company toted the 2-ton relic across the country.
The heist continues a long-running rivalry. Last year, Caltech students went to Cambridge to give prospective MIT students T-shirts that looked official. But on the back, they read: "Because not everyone can go to Caltech."
As for the cannon, it has traveled before. Twenty years ago, 11 Harvey Mudd College students spirited it off to Claremont.
Among those who spied the cannon Thursday was one of the Harvey Mudd tricksters. David Somers, now a psychology professor at Boston University, said a big smile came over his face as he stood before it. After cajoling from Somers, a few students confessed that they got the idea from his alma mater. "It's a great honor," he said, "to have MIT pulling a tribute prank."
(Excerpt) Read more at latimes.com ...
Caltech will have a damn hard time beating MIT at this game. Google MIT spelunking sometime, and look into some of the incredible pranks pulled over the years.
Yeah, I would imagine the top engineering minds in the country can come up with some pretty brilliant gags.
Did the MIT students violate Massachusetts firearms laws by bringing a working cannon into the state?
I thought they were called "hacks."
Published: January 20, 1984 Two California Institute of Technology students have been charged with misdemeanors for rigging the scoreboard during this year's Rose Bowl game between U.C.L.A. and University of Illinois, flashing the score, ''Caltech 38, MIT 9.''
Jan Kegel and Ted Williams, who face arraignment in Municipal Court Jan. 31, admitted they spliced a remote-controlled computer and other electronic gadgets into the wiring of the scoreboard.
They were charged with trespassing, malicious mischief and loitering in the Rose Bowl at night.
The Mountaineer from West Virgina was disarmed from Boston College football by gun grabbers.
My favorite Caltech prank is when some of the guys hacked into the scoreboard controls during the '84 Rose Bowl.
In 1985 at Harvey Mudd College, I was approached by David Summers, a senior physics major interested in pulling off the prank of the century against those penultimate pranksters at CalTech: stealing their cannon.
I had cased the idea with Paul Breed, a brilliant engineer, and had rejected it as not within our meager financial resources. In other words, we'd need institutional help or it wasn't going to happen.
As you know this cannon is big. As I dimly recall, the barrel is about eighteen feet long and the wheels are about six feet in diameter.
David's plan was to cook up a fake work order to restore the cannon, show up in broad daylight with a lowboy, and then lift it by the barrel with the forklift. When David (who majored in physics!!!) came to me with his plan, I calmly explained to him that the cannon carriage was designed to hold the barrel UP, not to support its weight from the barrel, and that he would have to lift it by the carriage else he could break it and end up in the pokey facing charges for vandalism and attempted grand theft (thereafter to foot the bill for repairs and get off with a slap on the wrist).
The key element in the success of the plan is that David was able to enlist the financial assistance of an alumnus, and the administrative complicity of Larry Hartwick, the Mudd campus facilities manager. Larry provided official-looking order forms and uniform coveralls. The rest is history.
The plan went off without a hitch; the CalTech students even helped us load it. Further, CalTech, instead of figuring out how to steal it back and restore their honor as mucho macho pranksters, they whined to our idiot college President until we returned it, gift wrapped.
One would think that, having been out-pranked on thier own turf, these "best and brightest" would have secured their cannon so that it couldn't happen again. Twenty-foot deep concrete casons with shackles over the wheels would have been quite sufficient. That these "geniuses" couldn't get it done is truly scary.
I have little doubt that some Mudd or CalTech grad associated with MIT suggested or organized this prank.
Paul, David, are you out there?
Geah! You beat me to it.
You are correct, but there are a group of spelunkers, not in the traditional sense, as well.
From HoToGAMIT, Ed. 4, September 1972.
I was at that game! I didnt know what it meant other than it was a prank. I think someone got caught planting a explosive device (or so Pasadena Police said) the next year....it was supposed to shoot an MIT banner up....
I imagine you would get a trip to Gitmo if you tried that during a BCS game now...
Sadly during my couple of years at MIT there were no good pranks at all....
From the ones I've heard about I think the phonebooth on the roof of the dome and the Massachusetts Toolpike booths in the Infinite Corridor were the best.
Oh, I see. In the sense of "tunnel exploration," I imagine.
All the building cellars, utility tunnels, anywhere where students aren't typicaly allowed.
Perhaps, but the people who took the cannon simply fooled campus security with a forged work order and then paid a real moving company to transport the cannon. Not terribly complicated....
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