Thursday, December 10, 2009

Too Fantastique to be True?

I love this one.

Over the last month or so, about a dozen people have sent me a link to an apparent engineering marvel located at the University of Iowa. Some have even talked about traveling there to see it.  Here's an excerpt from the video:



The claim is that the musical instrument is built mainly from John Deere machine parts and took over 13,000 hours to build, tune and perfect. The email, however, which most people simply forward, contains great clues for investigative searching:
Robert M. Trammell Music Conservatory
Sharon Wick School of Engineering
Matthew Gerhard Alumni Hall
University of Iowa

Fact Check: copy and paste any of the first three into a search query.

I hope my friends engage in a bit of investigative fact checking before they pack the car and head off to the University of Iowa!  They could check Snopes as well.

Your students may find this an interesting challenge.

The video is one of many similar animations first produced, not as a hoax, by Animusic.  Someone made it a believable hoax by making up some "facts" about it and thousands of people since have made it seem more credible by forwarding it to their friends. Did you help out in that regard?

No comments: