It may not look like something from "The Jetsons," but it does have air-conditioning, which is already more than what some Duke students have.
JVC of America and Popular Science Magazine teamed up to bring the "Dorm Room of the Future" to campus Thursday and Friday.
The event runs from 10 a.m. to 4 p.m., and the display is set up in the visitor's parking lot behind the Bryan Center.
Duke University Union decided to bring the tour, which aims to increase brand name recognition among college students, to campus earlier this summer.
"This is the first year that Popular Science Magazine is presenting a college tour, and I thought that it might be fun to be one of the first schools included in the tour," senior Rachel Saperstein, director of external liaisons for DUU, wrote in an e-mail. "I also thought that students might enjoy taking a break to check out some of the fun items that the tour is bringing to Duke."
The dormitory room is housed within see-through windows in the back of a truck and features a flat-screen television, a microwave, a laptop and other electronic appliances.
"It's not quite realistic. No dorm room would be this neat," JVC representative Jim Carroll said. "We need some clothes thrown in the corners."
Next to the dorm-display truck are several tents housing other electronic gizmos and gadgets. Students can play a game of "Quake 4" at a station of laptop computers as well as try their hand at flying a remote-controlled FlyTech dragonfly.
There are also several contests and raffles students can enter, such as a 30-second video competition called "Pimp My Dorm."
The grand prize is a $5,000 voucher that can be spent on electronics at Circuit City.
Staff members have been filming students explaining why they need their room pimped out in order to select a winner for the competition. Carroll said they already had about 25 videos Thursday afternoon, adding that he was pleased with the level of participation.
The best video Carroll said he saw featured two members of Duke University Improv, who came dressed as nerds arguing that they needed a high-tech dorm to conduct research and, more importantly, impress girls.
Staying in character as socially-maladjusted nerds the whole time, senior Matt Manocherian and junior Andrew Tutt had the tour staff cracking up.
"I need the room to conduct my photosynthesis project," Tutt said. "We're a part of the Advanced Research Projects Agency. That's ARPA."
The staff is having fun and the kids are entertaining as well, Carroll said.
"I feel like a bit of a fossil here, but that's OK," he added.
All videos recorded on the tour will be posted on the Popular Science Magazine Web site, where the public can vote for the best video. The votes will be taken into consideration during the judging process in addition to the video's creativity and originality, Carroll added.
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