Large paper airplanes in Lobby 10 and Stata

Location: Lobby 10 and Stata
Date: Weekend of April 13, 2007 (CPW 2007)
Perpetrators: Presumably students in the Spring 2007 Aero/Astro Unified Engineering class

During CPW 2007, students in the Aero/Astro class "Unified Engineering" placed large paper airplanes in Lobby 10 and Stata. The planes appeared to be made out of huge Athena laser-printer header pages.

Aero/Astro's Unified Engineering is considered to be one of the more challenging classes at MIT. In "Unified", students are presented with a broad survey of topics relating to aeronautics and astronautics. As such, building giant paper airplanes must have seemed like a great way to let off steam.

Athena laser-printer header pages contain a username as well as some form of graph or lined paper to make them be more reusable.

One plane bore the name joe_b. "Joe B" is the name of a fictitious person who determines how tests in Aero/Astro are graded. Tests in Unified are graded on an absolute scale, not on a curve.

The plane on the west side of Lobby 10 bore the name "punt" on it. "Punting" is MIT jargon for avoiding doing work.

The plane in Stata bore the name "xvi", the course number of the Aero/Astro department in Roman numerals.

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