O'Reilly's freshman seminar explores Hollywood's most dramatic special effects For 15 weeks, one hour each week, mechanical engineering professor Oliver O'Reilly takes his ME 24 freshman seminar students to the movies. In his "Mechanics and Movies: a Hollywood Perspective" class, O'Reilly and his students explore how mathematical models can be used to explain some of Hollywood's most dramatic special effects. "We look closely at the mechanical engineering issues involved in animating reality, from the tornadoes in 'Twister,' to the physics of shooting pool in 'The Hustler,' to the meteor showers in 'Armageddon,'" says O'Reilly, movie buff and recent recipient of the campus Distinguished Teaching Award. "We want to analyze each situation to ask how realistic the scenes are from a mechanics perspective. If Hollywood gets it right, we want to know how they did it. Some of the questions we ask in this seminar will be answered throughout the students' next four years and beyond." Freshman seminars are classes that professors offer beyond their routine teaching assignments. Generally not part of the required curriculum, these one-unit seminars offer students a chance to study a wide range of enriching, provocative engineering issues. Topics range from exploring the materials that make one musical instrument's tone dark, another's vibrant, to discussing the ethical issues arising from weapons proliferation. "The seminars offer an outlet for us to teach the things we really love, even though they may not be part of the educational mainstream," says O'Reilly, whose seminar is consistently fully enrolled. "At the same time, the seminars are designed to make the University a more intimate place for students, and to provide them close contact with professors at an early stage in their careers."
