Was watching a program on discovery channel the other day and some storm researcher dude had set up a simple tornado machine. Basically just a big fan that created a vortex feed by a cloud of vapor from dry ice to make it visible - very cool. If you go to youtube or google "tornado machine" there are all kinds of working examples some that use laser lights to change colors. Since ISU is such a great engineering school, wouldn't it be cool if someone in the engineering school built one of these that could be used at ISU football games? Imagine a large working model that appears to float on a crimson and gold cloud of dust and is driven around the field like the Sooner wagon (only the driver and workings could be hid in the platform and not visible to the crowd). Could even feed coloring into the dry ice evaporate to alternate the color between cardinal and gold. Wouldn't a 20 ft tall cyclone running down the field before the game and at halftime be awesome? If I was a young engineering student at ISU I would take this on as a project. Could probably use the Kick Starter website to get all kinds of funding. I know I would contribute and I am guessing a lot of others here would as well. Pretty amazing that amount of no-strings money some of the posters on Kick Start receive from strangers. Could make a smaller version that could be used indoors for basketball games. Something like this if done well would be truly unique to ISU - not just another cardinal mascot that a dozen other schools have. The publicity and cool factor would be huge and highlight ISU engineering program. Folks like me here in CA would definitely notice something this unique. Come on - let's make this a happen!
