Mo Lovegreen, Executive Officer for Geography, and Kathy Scheidemen, MSO for the Earth Research Institute (affiliated with Geography), got their sisterly heads together and came up with the idea of organizing a paper airplane competition for their staff members during UCSB’s Staff Appreciation Week. Staffers from both organizations were herded into the ERI conference room, presented with an assortment of papers, pens, scissors, paper clips, etc., and told to create a paper airplane.
After some serious plagiarism on the part of several female staffers, all of whom complained bitterly that making paper airplanes was a guy thing, everyone came up with a plane (of sorts), and each group’s efforts were judged on “beauty,” “flight time,” and “distance.” Yep, we all launched our creations from the sixth floor of Ellison Hall around 3:00 pm on May 14, 2012, and the results, like those of the Wright Brothers and their predecessors, were decidedly mixed.
Jose Saleta, Geography’s Student Programs Manager, was the bookie’s favorite, insofar as he has two sons and has spent a fair amount of time recently teaching them the art of paper airplane construction. Alas, his creation plummeted straight down, nearly impaling an innocent bystander on the ground below. Karl Antonsson, Geography’s Undergraduate Assistant, ended up taking honors for achieving the longest flight time of 16.9 seconds with a blunt nosed creation that kept on going and going and going–it turns out that he learned the arcane art of paper airplane construction from his father who is an engineer at Cal Tech. Connie Padilla, Geography’s Personnel Analyst, predictably, won the beauty award, and Beilei Zhang, Geography’s Contract and Grant Manager, cheated by using her powers of teleportation to take the award for distance.
However, the awards were hotly contested by Bill Norrington, Geography’s Editor. He sacrificed some of his own blood in the creation of his “Bloody Bomber” and felt that his unique decorative efforts were unappreciated. Furthermore, his masterpiece majestically sailed into a pine tree in the Ellison Courtyard and lodged there. Insofar as it stayed in the tree, Bill thought he should be awarded the prize for flight duration—however, it was pointed out that Beilei’s creation landed on the roof of Buchanan Hall, so she could technically claim the same honor. Bill’s Bloody Bomber was last seen being attacked by a Great Horned Owl, known to frequent the Ellison Courtyard pine trees–evidently, the blood on Bill’s creation attracted the voracious raptor (though some suspect it had something to do with an incident involving Bill, an owl’s foot, and a microwave—but that’s another story).
Article by Bill Norrington; for more photos, click here.
Addenda: On the ERI side, crafter Bonnie Roper went toe-to-toe with Heather Philips to split the Beauty award. The team made up primarily of students (Chelsey Tapie, Lily Owens, and Stephanie Pimienta) with help from staff member Cristina Wilson took the ERI award for distance. Cecilia Sousa‘s creation achieved a hang time of 12.9 seconds (a distant second to the Geography record).
Although there were few witnesses to this alleged event, a follow-on competition was held after hours between David Siegel, Geography faculty and ERI Director, and UC auditor Albert Rojas. Dave’s helicopter reportedly demonstrated a flight time of 18.7 seconds – just a bit shorter than the record time of Albert’s creation.
