Students Take Sledgehammers to Computers to Raise Money

For five hours last Friday, Tyler Penrod watched his fellow students at Purdue University take sledgehammers to computers.

Mr. Penrod, a senior at Purdue and president of a computer-animation club at the university, organized the event with other club leaders to raise travel funds for students to attend a national computer-animation conference. A local computer store donated old computers.

At Purdue, where many students take computer-related courses, “everyone has frustrations at a computer at one point or another,” Mr. Penrod said. “So it’s always a popular event.”

Students paid $1 for the privilege of destroying a machine. Organizers of the event, in its third year, follow safety guidelines used for car-smashing events, which are hosted by fraternities on the campus.

The anticomputer hoopla took place on a main quad, attracting attention from students on the way to and from class. Some students stopped by with suggestions for improving the event — by including music from the soundtrack of the movie Office Space, for example. A few prospective students exploring the campus also paused to ask questions.

The computers themselves were at least five years old, Mr. Penrod added. “Some of them looked like they were from the early 90s or something. I think we had a floppy disk in there.”