MIPS Speed Programmer Award!

For the aluminum foil plaque project, I created a fake "MIPS Speed Programmer" award, and put my computer architecture professor's name on it. This is funny to computer architects (yes I know it's a rather limited audience) because no one can really code in MIPS quickly. MIPS is a basic computer architecture that one codes in assembly language, which is a step up from binary (1s and 0s). I posted the award near the entrance to the classroom about 30 minutes before class started, and waited for people to enter. Most people noticed the award, and were quite amused by it. In general, students were interested in what it was. At one point, there was a small group of people standing around it trying to decipher its meaning. My computer architecture professor really loved it. Upon seeing it, he laughed. Next, he tried to take it down because it was his award. At this point, I had to interfere so I could see others' reactions. He thought it was a good project, and told me about when he had done something similar in graduate school. Below are a few pictures that I took of people reacting to the piece.

Here is where I placed it in the class room.

Here is my computer architecture pondering the plaque.

More people looking at the plaque.

Someone else looking at the plaque.

Here is a picture of the plaque.

A closeup of the face on the plaque.