Photo courtesy Ty Keltner

MBA student Ty Keltner created a model of the Gruening Building using Lego bricks. The project cost him over $1,100.

UAF students are known for working hard and playing hard. For many students, that means snowboarding, partying, camping or playing Wii. For grad student Ty Keltner, off time means building using thousands of the multi-colored bricks known as Legos.

Over the past year, Keltner, an MBA student, took on what he calls his “most ambitious project yet,” making a model of UAF’s Gruening Building. Throughout the past twelve months, the structure and thousands of Lego bricks have consumed his kitchen table in his Harwood Hall room. Now the model stands at two and half feet tall and three feet wide.

“It won’t fit out the door,” says Keltner of his Lego model, “I had to build it to split in two just so I could get it out of the Harwood Hall.”

The model contains thousands of pieces including 1,024 windows, 23 doors, and over 2000 “profile” bricks, which are special bricks with vertical ridges on them. The model also used thousands of common gray bricks, and eight 15’x15’ ‘baseplates.’

Keltner had many of the pieces in his collection already, but had to order others.

“There is a very competitive market for Lego on eBay, but it’s the best place to find what you need. I also ordered a lot off Lego.com. Overall, I’ve spent $1152.29 on this model. Not to mention all the hours I put into it,” said Keltner.

He says the hardest part about building the model was waiting.

“I could have built it all in about a week if I had the parts,” he said, “Ordering pieces is fun, but waiting weeks for them to arrive is torture.”

Though impressive already, the project doesn’t end there. Keltner created a web comic dedicated to a team of Lego builders that construct the Gruening Building.

“I did it as a way of teaching myself how to make a webpage,” said Keltner, “I thought this would be a good opportunity, plus a way to poke fun at campus life.”

The web comic features photographs of Lego people and the progress of construction. In the comic are Lego versions of Chancellor Jones, Governor Sarah Palin and made-up characters as well. Panels features jokes about UAF that range from parking services to the poor taste of campus water.

Keltner wants to enter the model into the student art show at the end of May, then hopes the UAF administration will buy the project and put it on permanent display in a lobby or foyer of one of the buildings on campus.

The “UAF Gruening Building” can be seen at the student art show running from May 5-9th in the art complex. Keltner’s Lego Guening website is available to public perusal at http://thekeltners.net/ty/LEGO/legogruening/INDEX.HTM.