A fish tale cyber style

ASEE Prism, Apr 2002 by Drenning, Erin, Stack, Allison

Even if your antiquated computer keeps crashing, you may not have it dump it. Three Rowan University engineering grad students have put a unique spin on recycling monitors that is both creative and lucrative.

Brian Fitzpatrick, Mike Ciocco, and Jeremy Neyhart found that constant upgrades can eventually turn a computer into more trash than treasure. But instead of letting them pile up in landfills, the trio rescues monitors that are headed for the dumpster and transforms them into functional art.

"The whole thing started because we always wanted a fish tank that looked like a screensaver, and over the summer we decided to build one,"says Fitzpatrick, a mechanical engineering student. The three made several unsuccessful attempts to construct their own but found that the best method was to buy a pre-made tank and fit it into an old computer monitor shell. And then they added the fish.

"We fooled a couple of our professors-they thought it was a real monitor with an awesome screensaver," Fitzpatrick continues. "They also thought it would be a great thing to potentially market and sell."

The students made their first sale in January and are doing fairly well for a new company. They're doing good too-if the trio doesn't salvage a monitor, it will almost surely be trashed, since it cannot be reused very easily.

Now that's quite a screen "saver."