No River No problem. You can still punt to the ball….

No River? No problem. You can still punt to the ball….

Sidney Sussex students used their ingenuity to full effect at this year’s May Ball to ensure that being land-locked didn’t mean no punting at the party.

Engineering students at Cambridge have a bit of a reputation for getting up to odd stunts. In 1958, in the small hours of the morning, a group of them manged to carefully perch an Austin Seven van on the apex of the Senate House roof using scaffolding poles. On that occasion, the police, fire service and civil defence units were called out and the clever, nameless miscreants went to ground, their identities only emerging some time later.

Happily the ingenious team responsible for the transformation of Sidney Sussex into a watery quasi-Venice for this year’s May Ball were working with the full knowledge and blessing of the College, and therefore did not need to hide their talents.

The team was led by engineering student Rob Weatherup and natural scientist Adam Lawrance-Owen. The idea was actually first put forward ten years ago, by student of the time, Roland Trim, who now works for an international firm of consultant engineers. It’s taken until now, for the May Ball Committee to take up the challenge. With advice from Roland Trim - who did incidentally, get to go to the Ball, and see his idea finally realised - the team spent months working on the design. It involved turning the two front courts of the College into one large lake with two canals created through linking corridors to allow punts to take tours in a circular loop.

There were a number of key challenges to be overcome if the project was going to be a success, in particular how a temporary structure could be created which was thoroughly watertight, able to withstand taking a beating with punting poles for the night and which could be erected and dismantled in a few days.

The team initially did a small-scale mock up of their design, using a double-skinned waterproof lining and aiming to test it to destruction to understand how much wear and tear it could endure.

They also devised methods to road-test carrying out underwater repairs on site if these proved necessary, and liaised with both Cambridge and Anglia Water companies to ensure that the filling and emptying of the completed lake would run smoothly.

These tests done, the ten-strong team were confident they could carry the project off, and the days running up to the Ball were spent preparing what became a breathtaking centrepiece for the event - and a focal point of much media attention.

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