Ceremonial Traveling Caldron
Fall of 1995 Georgia Tech Industrial Design and Mechanical Engineering began work on refining Peter Mastrogiannis' concept for the Ceremonial Caldron which was to travel with the Torch Relay and be the focal point during various local ceremonies from which the Torch Relay would eminate. Next to the torch project this was a "piece of cake" in that we were only making four caldrons, thus could fabricate them by the most expedient means rather than having to
factor in mass production technologies.
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We were presented with three similar concepts which were derivations of the torch. One of the concepts had already been ruled out by ACOG director, Billy Payne. A key player in this project was Tim Purdy who worked "magic" with Alias three-dimensional modeling of variations of Peter's design concept with Lee Payne sitting at his elbow making suggestions. The renderings were enough to convince ACOG of which design variation suited their objectives.
ACOG had wanted the caldron to be approximtely five feet tall so we showed a tall, thin version and a massive, squat version. They went for massive because they wanted the object to really make a statement in any particular city, village, town in which it put in an appearance. Having viewed it on TV many times,
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 I agree that the caldron makes a real impact on the evening news. After settling on the overall proportions we looked at a number of variations in detail which are shown in the accompanying images. One of the most impressive aspects of a program like Alias is that one is able to combine "virtual" images with real environments to better evaluate how a product will look in use. Tim Purdy lives in Marietta so it was quite convenient for him to photograph Marietta square then drop in his Alias image of the caldron into that environment. So all the variations in the caldron design were evaluated by ACOG in the only spot in the state of Georgia to which the Torch Relay would not travel. Cobb County had passed an anti gay life-style resolution so was purposely by excluded by the Olympic Committee for fear of demonstrations. So all our caldron evaluation images are "politically incorrect"! |
 The final design is approximately five feet high and two and a half feet in diameter. It consists of a gold ring with etched quilt of leaves surrounding the caldron at the top, seated on three gold plated brass duplicates of the Olympic rings / 100 symbol. (We produced a three dimensional "stereo-lithography" evaluation model of this part using Three D Systems' amazing machine in Georgia Tech's Rapid Prototyping Laboratory.) This top assembly rests on a column made of brushed aluminum tubes, trimmed with gold rings featuring the names of the twenty two cities who have hosted the modern Olympic Games. A circular base, trimmed in gold completes the design.
The Column was designed to contain a standard propane grill tank but ACOG elected to use a larger tank "off camera" and run a hose to the feed the caldron. |
Ceremonial Caldron ... Izzy ... Olympic Torch ... Olympic Caldron ... Landmark Torch ... Olympic Identity Program
