Popular TV Show Comes to UofL

On a late Friday afternoon in November, as Tim Gornet prepared to leave his office at the University of Louisville's J.B. Speed School of Engineering for the weekend, he received an unusual phone call. It was a producer from the popular TV show Extreme Makeover: Home Edition, which was in town filming a segment on UofL band member Patrick Henry Hughes and his family.

The show was in Louisville for one week, giving the Hughes's family home on Buechel Bank Road a "mega makover" as well as making substantial improvements to the marching band's practice field at UofL (see sidebar).

Hughes, who has been blind and physically challenged from birth, gained national attention as the 2006 recipient of Disney's Wide World of Sports' Disney Spirit Award. He also was featured on ESPN, ABC World News, Oprah, National Public Radio and in other media venues.

The producer talking to Gornet wanted to find a way for Hughes to "see" his family's newly renovated home, Gornet recalls. "They wanted a model of the home for Patrick, so that he could get an idea of the layout and shape of the house once it was completed. They wanted to know if this was something we could do."

Turns out they were talking to the right person.

Gornet is manager of operations at Speed School's Rapid Prototyping Center, which works with companies of all sizes as well as individual inventors to develop prototypes of products. The models help companies more quickly detect flaws, make improvements and get their products to market.

"That evening I was put in touch with the architect and received the two-dimensional layouts from them," Gornet says.

Graduate mechanical engineering student Damon Stacy, a co-op in the Rapid Pototyping Center, spent most of that weekend developing a three-dimensional computerized model. He and others at the center then loaded the model into a machine called a select laser sintering device, which melts powdered plastic and then builds the actual piece slowly up by layers. The plastic piece measures 18 inches by 15 inches by 7 inches—one-75th the house's scale, according to Gornet.

The model was delivered just in time for the "reveal," when the Extreme Makeover team "moved the bus" to show the remarkable renovation of the Hughes' home. As hundreds looked and marveled at the new home, Patrick Hughes was able to feel its shape and layout—inside and out—through the model.

Gornet estimates that making the model took him and Stacy more than 75 hours: 25 in the computer modeling, 22 hours in the machine and another 10 to get it ready with gluing and other finishing touches.

"The parts look great, and the model looks great. There's even a piano," Gornet says. "It was fun."

The Hughes family episode of Extreme Makeover: Home Edition aired nationally, Feb. 17, on ABC.

New digs for the band

The evening before Extreme Makeover "moved the bus" at the Hughes family home, more than 500 people turned out to participate in the show's unveiling of the new marching band practice field. The field—an intramurals field at the end of Brook Street near Papa John's Cardinal Stadium—was renovated with new lights, entrance, fencing and a building for storage. The field renovation was accomplished in one week and coincided with the home's makeover. The band will share it with intramural sports.

Not only did scores of university staff members and departments contribute to the UofL portion of the project, several outside vendors donated their services. They include:

• Dunaway Engineering
• Dogwood Homes
• Henderson Electric
• Cundiff Steel Fabrications and Erectors Inc.
• Abel Construction
• Biddle Construction
• R & R Concrete Construction LLC
• RAM Construction
• K&M Construction LLC
• Burks Quality Plumbing
• Waste Management
• Franklin-Price
• Linebach Funkhouser Inc.
• Microbac Laboratories
• Lighting Resources
• Greenebaum, Doll & McDonald
• EIC Technologies
• United Rentals
• Hubbell Lighting
• Quality Stone and Ready Mix Inc.
• Boland Maloney Lumber Co.
• Cross Country Distributing
• MSD
• LG&E
• Culinary Arts School
• Thornton's
• Wal-Mart
• Subway
• Little Caesar's
• Lee's Famous Recipe Fried Chicken
• The Spaghetti Shop
• Buffalo Wild Wings
• Havana Beverages
• Hester's Family Fitness & Recreation
• Lightyear - Whatever It Takes Transmission
• J. Gumbo's
• FireFresh Bar-Be-Que