Control Data Corporation, one of the pioneering supercomputer firms, developed an educational computer known as PLATO in 1982. The World’s Fair exhibit was staffed by around 65 UT engineering and computer science students. The computer contained more than seven thousand hours of instructional material in an individualized instruction format. At the conclusion of the fair, … Continued

UT departments and faculty were recipients of official gifts and items displayed during the fair. Among the items received were the following: Australia’s Windmills (non-power generating) were moved to the Cherokee Farm. China’s anaerobic digester (used to study the effects on wood by microorganisms in an oxygen-controlled area) was acquired by the Energy, Environment and … Continued

The Hungarian Pavilion at the 1982 World’s Fair boasted the world’s largest Rubik’s cube, turning at its entrance. Professor Rubik, a practicing architect and professor of architecture at the Hungarian Institute for Industrial Design, visited the fair, giving a lecture and signing autographs. UT architecture faculty interacted with Rubik at the fair. At the conclusion … Continued

UT art professor Philip Livingston participated in an international competition in which each artist submitted proposals or ideas for sculpture to be located on the World’s Fair site. Livingston was notified in September 1981 that he had been selected to prepare a sculpture, which had to be completed by October 19. The painted steel 45-foot … Continued

In July 1977, following two years of planning in cooperation with the UT College of Engineering and the Energy Opportunities Consortium Inc. (an independent corporation comprised of UT, Oak Ridge National Laboratory, and TVA), Walter Lambert, special assistant for federal relations to Vice President for Development Joe Johnson, directed the compilation of a 46-page report … Continued

Administrative intern Trudy Banta, working on planning aspects of university activities related to the fair, estimated in March 1982 that more than ten thousand visitors would be on the UT campus daily during the fair. She explained that there would be a UT Visitors’ Information Center in the Graduate Lounge of the university center during … Continued

The UT College of Nursing hosted the Wellness Station in the Knoxville’s Health Pavilion, a 100-foot diameter geodesic dome. The Wellness Station provided visitors with a wellness inventory of health age. It was staffed by four members of the nursing faculty and graduate nursing students, on a volunteer basis. Activities included teaching people to relax … Continued

Chalmers R. Drain, UT bakery supervisor, “thought it would be nice” if UT were responsible for the largest cherry pie in the world. In fall 1969 Morrill Hall served up what its bakers contended was such a pie. It was six-feet six-inches in diameter, three inches deep, and designed to serve seven hundred hungry students. … Continued

Prior to the homecoming football game against Ole Miss on November 13, 2010, alumni were invited to grab a slice of the World’s Largest MoonPie, a chocolate-marshmallow confection weighing in at 55 pounds, 40 inches in diameter by 6 feet high and packing 45,000 calories. The MoonPie was made by Chattanooga Bakery, founded in 1902, … Continued

The UT Bakery prepared the “world’s largest orange cake” in anticipation of the 2003 football season. The cake, in the shape of the state of Tennessee, was 20 feet long and 8 feet wide. It weighed five hundred pounds. The cake was transported by truck to West Town Mall, and on August 28 a cake … Continued