How many Rose-Hulman students does it take to change a light bulb?

How many Rose-Hulman students does it take to change a light bulb?

I attended a Brazil Public Library Board Meeting last month. Three students from Rose-Hulman Institute of Technology were there requesting permission to do a project for one of their classes. The assignment is to change the light bulbs in the atrium at the library.

You may be asking why we need college students to change some light bulbs. An extension project for the library was started in 2005 and completed in 2007. The new design included a 30 foot high atrium at the entrance of the building. The atrium is lighted by six, triple twin florescent tubes which are about five inches long. They’re in recessed cans in the ceiling. These tubes do not screw in and out they have to be plugged in and pulled out from the side.

During the extension project, after the lights were installed and hooked up, a stairway was built under this ceiling. The staircase starts at the ground floor and goes up seven steps to the east, six steps to the north, then seven more steps back to the west to reach the second floor. It’s a three tiered, ascending, kind of a spiraling U-shaped staircase.

The bulbs have all burned out and need replaced. But because of the height of the ceiling and the location of the staircase under it, scaffolding and ladders can’t be placed strategically to get the job done. I have to wonder what the architects were thinking when they drew up these plans.

A staff member said she recalled that, initially, someone said the bulbs would last 20 years. Obviously they didn’t, which is a real shock. But that doesn’t matter. Even if they were hundred year bulbs, eventually they’d have to be replaced. That time has come. And it’s a real dilemma. As you can see, the library has bigger problems than who can park in their parking lot.

One of the Library Board members, Dr. Zac Chambers, is a professor at Rose-Hulman. He presented this problem as a possible project for his mechanical engineering senior design class. Three of his students, Dylan Boyer, Wenhanke Li and Yixi Fan accepted the challenge. They said they have a year to do it and must complete the assignment to be able to graduate so they’re not taking this lightly. (Pun intended.) I wish them lots of luck and total success.

Libraries are wonderful places. You can go anywhere on the planet at a library, even fantasyland. You can get answers to most of your questions. You can see that you’re not so weird because there are other people who think like you do. And you can broaden your horizons and thought processes by embracing ideas totally different from your own. All of this is available in books. And those books are accessible through the library. It’s a shame those architects didn’t use the library to get more books on lighting and stairwell design.

You should make a visit to our library. Browse around and see what it has. While you’re there, look at the atrium lights above the staircase. If you have any ideas on how to change the light bulbs let me know. I’ll pass it on to the RH students.

Cicero once said, “If you have a garden and a library, that’s all you need.” Except light. Keep smiling. Linda Messmer can be reached at 812-448-8725.