It was a pas de deux of sorts, albeit an unusual one. An engineering professor in search of a student project and a dance director in need of a new prop teamed up to produce a Christmas tree that grows, a central stage element to “The Nutcracker,” the classic holiday ballet.
Students in Prof. William Keat’s sophomore research seminar tackled the real-world engineering exercise after Keats teamed with Darlene Myers, director of the Northeast Ballet. Myers needed a design for a tree to replace the aging one that has starred for nearly two decades in the Proctor’s Theater spectacle. They were brought together thanks in part to Jill Salvo, professor of Biology and director of government grants, who has had a long association with Myers’ company.
Keat’s SRS, in which students assembled “Impossible Missions Design Teams,” had a goal of improving the “growing tree” used in the production. The teams focused on adding three-dimensionality to the tree. The designs had two main functional requirements – they had to grow, and, when removed, they had to fit through a narrow fly space above the stage to make way for the next scene.
Three teams developed a quarter-scale prototypes with a maximum height of seven feet. They were not replicas of the final design, Keat said, but attempts to evaluate ideas that could be incorporated in the 2008 production. They were presented to Myers at the end of fall term.
“What most distinguishes this project from others is the amount and quality of true interdisciplinary teaming that took place,” Keat said. “Engineers and liberal arts students from diverse majors worked together on a project in which they needed each other. My guess is that the College will be seeing more and more of this kind of teaming in the future.”