UChicago Twitter link to this 2012 New Yorker article:
https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2012/07/02/the-hunter-games
“…In 1999, for five hundred points, a pair of physics students built a working nuclear breeder reactor in a Burton-Judson dorm room in one day, converting thorium powder collected from the inside of vacuum tubes into weapons-grade uranium, using a device made from scrap aluminum and carbon sheets. A concerned nuclear physicist attested to the machine’s efficacy.”
That was pre 9/11 days. I am not sure they can pull it off today without Homeland Security asking a lot of questions before and after. Nonetheless, that was an amazing feat.
The Scav List is released tonight at midnight! My second-year DD is deciding between attending the reading or getting some sleep lol
My kid graduated 2 years ago and loved Scav. It combines so many of her interests: team dynamics, tinkering and building stuff. Some alumni return and help out. She was in a small house so it was a tight group. I remember visiting during Scav her first year and the house lounge had plastic over the floor and taped halfway up the walls. It was a mad construction zone with paint, wood, tools all over (they would dumpster-dive all year to colllect matrrials). There was this geodesic playground dome thing that people were covering with paper mache. “What’s that?” we asked. She said one challenge was to create a human body part that people could walk in, “so we’re building a uterus.” I think it was 2 years ago that a couple got married during Scav and everyone was in Rockefeller Chapel. The couple crowd-surfed out after the “I do’s”. You can find it on YouTube.
Scav is currently ongoing, but the list is here, for your perusal: http://scavhunt.uchicago.edu/2018List.pdf