Lego Masters New Zealand contestant and University of Otago energy management graduate Jake Roos has memorialised April 1988, when the physics department shone a high-powered laser from the third floor window of the Science 3 building for the first time.
University of Otago physics department head Professor Blair Blakie said the department had just received a new laser and decided to shine it out as an outreach activity.
"In this building we have a lot of very expensive lasers — usually for doing precision atomic physics experiments, and a lot of them are invisible.
"But every so often, we get one that’s somewhere in the visible spectrum and they’re glorious to look at.
"So I think that is part of what motivated that demonstration."
The laser projection lasted for about 30 minutes over four consecutive nights, and the demonstration was even cleared with Police and Dunedin Airport in advance, he said.
"The fact that they did this and they got some nice photos of the laser going up, it was something that appeared on our handbook for a long time.
"It was very iconic for the department."
Mr Roos was a former student in the department and worked there in the energy programme for many years before moving into private industry.
He said he initially memorialised the event using lego for a competition celebrating the university’s 150th anniversary at the 2019 Dunedin Brickshow.
"I had a lot of fun building it and I thought that the people at the physics department would get a kick out of it too, so I offered the model to my good friend Prof Craig Rodger, who was head of the department at the time. He got behind the idea and gave it pride of place at reception in the physics department."
Prof Blakie said it was great.
"It’s a very iconic shot of the department. It’s something that sits in the memories of many people around here — it’s an image that’s very common to us. It’s quite a small piece of lego, but it really captures the department and the building at the time."
