Glass Olympics brings students from 12 schools to Alfred University for glass-themed competition

Alfred University hosted the Glass Olympics Oct. 10-11, and the event was a success, drawing close to 220 students from 12 colleges and universities. The Glass Olympics brings together glass students and educators from across the country for a weekend of skill, creativity, and collaboration.

Blending symposia with high-energy glass-makings games, the Glass Olympics celebrates the dynamic and evolving nature of contemporary glass art. Alfred University, which possesses some of the top glass art and engineering programs in the country, last hosted the annual event 10 years ago.

Sarah Blood, associate professor of light in Alfred University's School of Art and Design, explained that the event offered a series of "games" or "challenges" created by glass art and engineering faculty. Blood, along with Rebecca Arday, assistant professor of glass, were co-organizers of the Glass Olympics. The challenges, held Saturday, Oct. 11, took place in art and engineering venues including the glass Hot Shop, Flameworking Stations, Casting Shop, Plaster/Wax Rooms, Lecture Halls, and the Hall of Glass Science Labs.

A group of students participate in the Glass Olympics, hosted by Alfred University.

Each participating school formed teams, which rotated through the different challenge areas. "The specific tasks are kept secret until the event begins-there's no prior training or information about what each challenge will involve," Blood explained. "The games are a mix of glassmaking skills, and playful and silly tasks. In each round, two teams compete head-to-head, and over the course of the day, every team has the chance to face each other."

Doris Möncke, associate professor of glass science engineering, said the School of Engineering's challenge-hosted by graduate students in the Glass Engineering Science program-demonstrated ion conduction in glass melts. Teams of students competed by connecting live wires from molten glass, which acts as a conductor of electricity, to a light bulb. The team whose bulb was lit first and stayed lit the longest won the competition.

Jacob Kaspryk (right), glass engineering science graduate student at Alfred University, oversees one of the challenges held as part of the recent Glass Olympics held on campus. In this competition, teams of students took a crucible of molten glass from the furnaces and drew a maze with glass across two wires to light a lightbulb. Points were awarded for who lit their bulb first and whose bulb remained lit the longest.

"Our students explained the science behind the challenge," Möncke said.

This year's event featured the following challenges:

• Plaster/Wax Room - Wax, Wax Menagerie: Teams had 20 minutes to create a grapefruit-sized wax creature with limbs, eyes, and other features. The rest of the group then created the creature's environment in plaster.
• Glass Casting Shop - House of Shards: Participants had to create the tallest free-standing tower from a single ladle of molten glass. The tower was built by slowly "tweezering" the molten glass-moving carefully enough to allow it to cool and remain stable, but quickly enough to gain height. Points were awarded based on how tall each team's tower grew.
• Flameworking Studio - Banana-Rama: Students had 20 minutes to capture the essence of a banana. Solutions included a flameworked block with the letter "K" (for potassium), a flameworked banana inserted into a real banana peel, and a banana duct-taped to the wall à la Maurizio Cattelan's The Comedian, a sculpture of a banana duct taped to a wall by Maurizio Cattelan that earned viral acclaim.
• Neon Studio - Chubes: Teams had to cut a 4-foot glass tube and make as many splices as possible in 15 minutes. Splicing involves heating two pieces of glass with a hand-held torch and fusing them into one piece. Each action - cutting, holding, heating, and blowing, was assigned to a different team member. Tubes that passed the drop test earned points for intact splices.
• Hot Shop - The Tube: Teams had to blow a cup-like object weighing as close to 500g as possible without going over, which had to pass through a 5-foot graphite tube at some point in its making. Points were awarded for meeting the parameters and for creativity. A drop on the floor resulted in disqualification and 0 points.
• Engineering - Fast Ion/Last Ion: Teams took a crucible of molten glass from the furnaces and drew a maze with glass across two wires to light a lightbulb (molten glass is conductive). Points were awarded for who lit their bulb first and whose bulb remained lit the longest.
• Room C - Geopardy (Sponsored by GEEX - Glass Education Exchange): Like Jeopardy, but with glass-themed questions on techniques, artists, literature, and other glass-related facts.

At the end of the day, scores were tallied, and the winning team chose their trophy first. All teams make a trophy, and each team went home with a trophy created by a different school. This year's winning team, Salem Community College, chose Alfred University's trophy- a monkey holding neon on top of a banana-as their prize.

Some of the trophies created for the recent Glass Olympics hosted by Alfred University. The trophy created by Alfred's team, which was eventually chosen as the champion's trophy, is shown in the center and depicts a monkey holding neon on top of a banana.

Several activities were held on the Glass Olympics' opening day, Friday, Oct. 10. They included a movie night in Holmes Auditorium, which featured a curated selection of iconic glassy films from the Rakow Library Archives. The collection of 12 movies was curated by Arday. Organizers gave with special thanks to Hugh and Regan at the Rakow Research Library, at the Corning Museum of Glass, for their help in procuring films for this program.

Also on Friday, Andrew Bearnot, a Chicago-based artist and self-described "materialist," offered the keynote address. "Informed by a background in glassblowing and materials science, they think with and through the substance of things," Blood said. "Bearnot's work explores moments of queer phenomenology in the everyday. Their sculptures, prints, drawings, and videos are invitations to calibrate oneself and to be calibrated by the world."

Participating teams were from Alfred University, Anoka-Ramsey Community College (Minnesota), Ball State University (Indiana), Bowling Green State University (Ohio), College for Creative Studies (Michigan), Kent State University (Ohio), Old Dominion University (Virginia), Rochester Institute of Technology, Salem Community College (New Jersey), The Ohio State University (Ohio), University of Wisconsin-Madison, and University of Wisconsin-River Falls.

Alfred University faculty who participated, helping to oversee various challenge competitions, included co-organizers Sarah Blood and Rebecca Arday; Angus Powers, professor of glass; Doris Möncke, associate professor of glass science engineering; and S.K. Sundaram, Inamori Professor of Materials Science and Engineering. Participating staff included Rowan Klingensmith, technical specialist, Dimensional Studies; Amis Crawford, sculpture glass studio technician; Malachi McElroy, Foundations technical specialist; and Erin Taylor, digital fabrication lab specialist.

Sixty-four volunteers-students from the glass, glass science, and School of Art and Design Foundations programs-assisted in the event. Classes represented in the planning and day-of and post-event activities included Intro to Glass (x2), Intermediate Glassblowing, Neon, GlassArtEngine, Foundations, Sculpture/Dimensional Studies graduate students, and Glass Engineering Science graduate students.