Stanford Report, June 5, 2002
BY BARBARA PALMER
WHEN WINEMAKER PETER MONDAVI JR. recently found himself facing a novel design problem, he turned to his former prof, mechanical engineer DAVE BEACH. Mondavi, an alumnus and co-proprietor of the Charles Krug Winery, had planned to donate 20 cases of custom-blended wine to the Napa Valley Wine Auction, with three of the cases bottled in a 27-liter bottle. The problem? Where to find a decanting cradle that would make it possible to pour gracefully from a 100-pound bottle into glasses without spilling. Could Beach's students custom-engineer a solution? Beach not only was interested, "it was a cool enough project, I didn't want to just hand it off," he said. He gathered some top design students who recruited others to tackle the problem. The seven-member team, which called themselves "Motley Krug," worked four months on the project, abandoning some early high-tech concepts for an elegant oak and aluminum creation that relies purely on mechanical balance to get the job done. "With less than one pound of force, you can reach up and pour the wine," said Beach. The 20 cases of wine and the decanter were auctioned off for $25,000 -- the proceeds will go to fund Napa Valley health organizations, affordable housing and youth development. "It was a collaborative project," said MFA student MANDY KNOX, who fashioned a silver spout for the decanting cradle. "I got a really good taste of what it's like to work with a team of people."
NINE TIBETAN MONKS FROM THE DEPRUNG Gomang Monastery of India will be on campus this week to create a 5-foot-diameter mandala out of colored sand in the Asian Sculpture Gallery at the Cantor Arts Center. The monks will work from 11 a.m. to noon and from 1 to 5 p.m. Wednesday to Saturday in the gallery, which will remain open to the public. On Saturday afternoon, the monks will conduct a ceremony and then dissolve their days of work in water. "It's the process of making it that's important," said JOHN LISTOPAD, curator for Asian art. On Thursday at 7 p.m., the monks will perform a sacred ritual dance on the terrace outside the arts center. All events are free and open to the public.
SCIENCE MAY MAKE THE WORLD A BETTER place, but RICHARD ZARE, the Marguerite Blake Wilbur Professor in Natural Science, does it because, "simply, it is so much fun." That's part of what Zare plans to tell graduates when he delivers a speech, "The Importance of Science and Technology for China," as commencement speaker at Hunan University in China on June 17. "As we become wiser, we realize that we are living together on one fragile planet and that it is one interconnected world," the text of Zare's speech reads. "Let us strive to become members of the global community of scholars."
Write to Barbara Palmer at
barbara.palmer@stanford.edu or mail code 2245
or call her at 724-6184.
Barbara
Palmer