DALLAS (SMU) – WABA Fun LLC and SMU’s Lyle School of Engineering are partnering to construct a prototype for the world’s tallest toy.
The intense, round-the-clock, four-day design competition will take place Oct. 11-14 in the Innovation Gym on SMU’s campus as part of its prestigious Immersion Design Experience program.
The winning design will be built by WABA Fun in Washington D.C., in September 2014, the 100-year anniversary of the rod and hub style construction toy, with the goal of setting a new Guinness World Record.
WABA Fun will provide five teams of SMU students with Superstructs™ construction toys – a system of interlocking rods, hubs and panels – to build the prototype for the world’s tallest toy on the Dallas campus. Judges from WABA Fun and the Lyle School of Engineering will choose the winning design on Oct 14th.
Watch the students at work. Tap into the live-stream from the Innovation Gym at http://www.smugym.com after the competition begins Friday, Oct. 11, at 6:30 p.m.
WABA Fun will fly the winning student team to Washington, D.C., to oversee the construction of the full-scale design at theNational Building Museum in conjunction with the museum’s September 2014 Big Build Festival. A representative will be on hand to confirm the structure sets a new Guinness World Record.
SMU engineering students will be asked to surpass the previous “world’s tallest” design, measuring in at a height of 103 feet, to set a new record.
This is the first collaboration between SMU’s Lyle School and WABA Fun. SMU’s Immersion Design Experience program previously has included large engineering companies, small startups, individual entrepreneurs, and military/government research labs in an attempt to solve real world problems in an impossibly short period of time.
“The goal is to inspire everyone to build bigger dreams,” said WABA Fun General Manager Shannon Gray. “Never before have the stakes been, literally, so high! Through this project we aim to encourage everyone to learn, play and build big in their own lives. SMU proves special for many reasons; chief among them are their superior engineering students. An added plus for us is that two of the top directors of SMU’s program are former leaders in the toy industry. Together, we are collaborating to build the World’s Tallest Toy. This will be an amazing event.”
“This is going to be fun,” said Innovation Gym Director Greg Needel. “We expect the models they build during the competition period to be pretty impressive – we’ll be setting a 20-foot minimum for entries. But imagine how great it’s going to be for the winning team to see their design built to full height in the museum.”
- Location: SMU’s Innovation Gym, Caruth Hall, 3145 Dyer St., Dallas, 75205
- Competition kickoff: 6:30 p.m., Friday, Oct. 11
- Competition ends: 4 p.m., Monday, Oct. 14. Award ceremony to follow
The Innovation Gym is a large, multi-purpose space on the SMU campus specifically designed for students to brainstorm, design and prototype engineering solutions in one space. The sleeping bags and cots at the perimeter of the room are not window dressing – students frequently work through the night to complete immersion design projects.
