Hovering Truth

Here we were, thinking nothing would ever happen again on this site, when we got news of a new hack at IST Taguspark. Why doesn't anything ever happen on this campus? This one is called Hovering Truth (hoveringtruth _ a t _gmail [dot] com).

We heard about IST Hacks after the publicity the first hack generated. It was around that time (last semester) that we decided to do something for ourselves. Our main problem was that we were new to the facilities, so we decided to wait for this second semester to execute our plan.

We first thought of hanging funny messages around the classrooms, but the security guards are quite threatening and would remove them too quickly for anyone to notice.

And then one of us remembered we could fix them to the amphitheatres' ceilings. We all looked up and the obvious question that followed, "How?" got the answer "with balloons!".

After we managed to stop laughing (it took a few minutes) we began to plan our hack

We had to suspend the plan for summer break, but when this semester began we got to work again. We found a store that sold helium bottles (there aren't that many) and bought one for €40 with balloons included in the set. By that time nobody thought about how we would carry a helium canister around the premises.

We were however missing the messages to attach to the balloons. We decided against a lot of them and to focus on the essentials of our still short stay at IST: the fact that Fénix never works and that the high drop rates are taken to be a fact of life. We went to have them printed and I still believe we've been ripped.

And now, ladies and gentlemen, the moment you've all been waiting for, the famous hovering truths!

Inspired by the detailed planning of IST Panik, we investigated the best schedule and prepared a zone patrol to make sure we had the time to fill 16 balloons and release them into two of the most used classrooms on campus unnoticed - it looks like we did >: )

After some sustainability tests (how many balloons were needed for each poster) and
some timing test we finally set the date: Friday, 28th of September.

The funniest thing about it is that when you're trying to keep a low profile you manage to bump everyone you didn't want to, and even those who we kept away from seemed to watch us from a distance (those security guards are really curious).

Long story short, we entered the rooms (no, we're not gonna tell you how), filled the balloons, attached the messages, released the packages and got out completely unnoticed.

We walked around a few hours later to see the reactions and it was really good :D. We especially liked seeing people laughing at Fénix.

We hope you publish our hack. We haven't broke any rules that we know of, and we gave the poor calculus students a good laugh.

Keep motivating the people,
Best regards,
The Hovering Truth team (hoveringtruth _ a t _gmail [dot] com)

We at IST Hacks must say we found the idea hilarious and the execution flawless. Besides not being caught, they got their own pictures to prove it and showed the world that the boring unoriginal college is Nova and not our IRS. We'd also like to thank everyone else who sent us pictures of this event.

This is, officially, the 2nd IST Hack.

Get involved, send us your own hacks! isthacks _ a t _gmail [dot] com