Take back the sidewalk

We painted a huge firefox mural in the middle of the Oregon State University quad.

How we did it

It was Wednesday night when several of us were throwing around ideas as to what we could possibly do for the 50 million download contest. After thinking of a bunch of ideas, we thought of using chalk to draw a huge Firefox logo on the quad outside the Memorial Union Building at Oregon State University. The idea was pretty cool, but, being students, we couldn't really find the time during the week. Finally, Friday arrived, and we were itching to do it. Time: 2315.

Sidewalk chalk is expensive, and for the size of our project, quite inadequate. Instead we used a mixture of corn starch, food coloring, koolaid, and water. We bought all, 19 pounds, of the bulk cornstarch at the discount grocery store in town. We thought that would be enough, so we set to work. Time: 0000.

The first step was to divide the logo into a 20x20 grid that we temporarily put on the concrete with lots of string. We then transfered the outlines from the paper to the full-scale grid using sidewalk chalk. Time: 0100.

Next came the messy part. We mixed the cornstarch mixture in buckets, and started to paint. It wasn't long before we realized just how large of a project we had gotten ourselves into. Each bucket of starch didn't seem to cover much area. So, we bought more. Also the koolaid, even though it provided a really pleasant scent, didn't do a very good job of coloring the corn starch. So, food coloring was purchased, which worked much better. Fervently we painted for the next four hours. Time completed: 0500.

We signed our work, cleaned up, and went back home. It had been a long night, but very fruitful. Overall, the logo is about 30 feet in diameter.

From the beginning to the end, the project was a perfect
example of the Open Source community cooperating to accomplish great things. Some times the greatest things happen between 12am and 6am. :)

Materials

• 20lbs of corn starch
• 80 packets of kool-aid
• 1 cooler full of water
• food dye
• paper paint buckets
• Cost: ~$30

Contributors

• Beth Gordon
• Kim Marshall
• Brandon Philips
• Matt Viehdorfer
• Stuart McKim
• Alex Polvi
• Eric Betts
• Random insomniac guy

Other

• All Photos

Go Beav's!