User:Rich1874/Long Pole Theory

THE LONG POLE THEORY CONTROVERSEY 06 AND RELATED EVENTS
The Long Pole Theory is a dynamic stability theory formulated by engineering 'maverick '(in many ways similar to the maverick like Kurt Russell in the film Breakdown, or indeed to reference a frankly overreferenced film, a bit like Tom Cruise in Top Gun, although it should be pointed out that not every situation is like Top Gun) Richard Harte. The formulation of the theory during the lead up to the 2006 NUIM robotics competition and subsequent events have been referred to by some critics as 'The Tarnished Golden Era of Maynooth Engineering', due to the accompanying hanus acts perperated against Harte by engineering oddball Tony keenan. This article includes the history of the theory and the controversial events that surrounded its mercurial ascendency to the summit of needlessly complicated and nonsensical jibberish engineering which was the style at the time.

FORMULATION

The theory was first formulated in 2006 by Engineering student Richard Harte while studying in NUI Maynooth. The theory was formulated to solve the problem of mechanical instability in rigid moving objects while Harte was working on a complex robotics assignment. The theory has come under much scrutiny from many quarters, none more so than Harte’s partner in the project, the less than venerable Tony Keenan. The theory was voted ‘theory of the decade’ by Stephen 'Flashgame' Byrne, although allegedly under severe duress from an unknown assailant.

THE PROBLEM

The problem that Harte and his fellow project members, Tony ‘Tonk’ Keenan (a.k.a Genghis Keenan, a.k.a. Tony ‘The future of the Maynooth Engineering Department’ Keenan, a.k.a 'Typical' Tony Keenan), and Isa 'International man of Mystery' Iminov, faced was that any mechanical grabbing device situated at the front of the robot created a forward drag while the robot was in motion. This drag in particular affected the robot while it was climbing steeper gradients. Eventually after much heart-ache surrounding the problem, the brash young Harte took the initiative on the project from his fatter, hairier and more archaic teammate Keenan, and formulated arguably the most groundbreaking theory of that particular day.

THE THEORY

The theory states that: The drag created by any moveable mechanical device acting towards the front of a vehicle in motion can be counteracted by means of a extremely long and unnecessarily massive pole connecting the device to a motor that is situated towards the back of the vehicle, where the pole is the primary driver of the main gear system. There's no trick to it, it's just a simple trick, simply stated in the form of this bafflingly over-complicated equation, which is mixture of all the bestest equations.

The theory forms part of a complex stability criterium which no earthly equations or derivations can describe. Harte claims that he simply sees the derivation in his head, and that all the paper and the computers in the world could not handle the computation required. One day, a team consisting of Ross 'Code' Behan and Anthea 'C++ ist mein lieblingsfach' Middleton, attempted to write Matlab code to simulate the Long Pole Model and associated stability criterium. The computer rocked on its hypothetical Z axis for several minutes before crashing at a spectacular rate into the ground and killing several product designers. One day a product designer asked Harte could the Long Pole Theory be used to bring any stability to the kites they were scheduled to build that afternoon at playgroup. Harte responded, in classically witty and dry fashion, by beating the product designer to death with what witnesses described as a 'massive pole'.

THE COMPETITION

Harte, Keenan, Iminov and their robot ‘Eamon’ went in to the Engineering Robot Cup, the pinnacle of Department calendar, at the end of the semester as many people’s favourite to win the Cup outright. Many pundits felt that with Keenan’s programming skills, Harte’s cutting edge design style and intellectual prowess and sheer artistic ingenuity and vast array of functional skills and Iminov’s professionalism and punctuality that the robot would surely prevail. Many previous sceptics who were worried about the robot’s instability on both the turn and the climb, were put at ease by the implementation of Harte’s Long Pole Theory, not to mention the public support for Keenan who was much the crowd favourite on the day, due in no small part to his cousin Brendan 'The Power' Power gathering a rent-a-crowd for a good old fashioned robot ho-down, or, ro-down. Harte assured the crowd of a fine exhibition of engineering, and quipped in legendary fashion (in a fake English accent) that he would 'put the gin back in engineering' before famously downing several shots of massively expensive gin in the laboratory. Problems were rife from the very first moment however and the robot struggled throughout the competition runs, looking anything but the much vaunted ‘super robot’ the media had labelled it. Tension was rife in the camp. Harte looked to Keenan for answers as to why his code was so shoddy, he made wild gestures with his hands so that if anybody was in the process of recording the argument, the clip could be used in a sexy montage about how the lives of engineers are so interesting and stressful, much like how the lives of New York stock brokers are portrayed in the film Wallstreet. The robot stalled on its three runs without retrieving the can on a single occasion. Although the Robot looked just fantastic stability wise, Tony Keenan's floundering code meant that Eamon the Robot was dazed and confuse, often just falling of the side of the bridge before bursting dramatically into flames.

WINNERS The competition was eventually won in hugely controversial and bizarre circumstances by the much unfancied pair of Congolese super tycoon Lokola ‘Prince’ Mtwali and Trinity blow-in Anthea ‘Mary’ Middleton. Apparently they won some sort of fleece which Mtwali continued to wear for the following three years. Bitter feelings over the victory remain to this day, not least from the much fancied trio of William 'The Quitter' Rafferty, Ross 'No Food' Behan and Ntumpa 'TheShiteOutYou' Mvanga. In fact, just after the competition ended, the trio ran their robot (RossStone Cowboy') again, the robot completing the course with no flaws. William Rafferty may have mouthed a curse word but certainly nobody heard it. Ntumpa laughed, shook his head and kept repeating the words 'I dunno Man' in that typical Congalese drawl of his. Ross went for pints all day in the SU. Of course at this point, the stageshow surrounding the Long Pole Theory and the Harte-Keenan complex had died down, and simply put, nobody gave a bollocks about RossStone Cowboy or whoevcer that other team was who won it.

FALLOUT FROM THE COMPETITION

Harte immediately called a press conference in the SU. He vilified Keenan, making unsubstantiated claims about his sordid sex-life, making light of his weight problem, hurling insults at his rambuncious and dissident hair-style, provoking the crowd with ambisuous rhetoric like 'Do we want old man Keenan here with his finger on the button', inciting hatred by spawning overused right wing jingoitic statements like 'Keeenan took our jobs, he's what's wrong with this bloody country' and making it no secret that we considered Keenan a liar, a coward and a spoofer. With the corwd in a state of ultra-fanatiscism, they proceeded to go and burn down Keenan's secret evil computer coding, death ray and nerd laboratory atop Death Mountain.

RECEPTION AND CRITICISM

The Theory, although well received by the engineering community in general, has come under harsh and often unsubstantiated criticism from some corners. The harshest critic of all has been Harte’s apparent ‘friend’ and partner in the epic project, Tony Keenan. Keenan has been quoted as claiming that ‘The Long Pole Theory is not a real theory’ and ‘No!’ (often spoken in a much exaggerated Portlaoise accent). The reason for Keenan’s unprovoked outbursts and criticism remains unclear. However some sources close to the student put it down to the failure of the team to win the Engineering Robotic Cup. Many pundits feel that Keenan’s decidedly poor NQC programming was the reason for the robot’s demise in the competition, although Keenan was quick to point out when asked about these rumours that the robot’s instability during the competition runs may have caused the programme to become ‘confused’, an obvious denunciation of Harte’s Theory. Some sources claim that since the beginning of 1st year, Keenan had engaged in a scurrilous and deliberate attempt to sabotage Harte’s academic efforts, culminating in Keenan ‘rigging’ the robot to fail on competition day, thereby publicly disgracing the functionality of The Long Pole Theory. Keenan continues to rubbish such claims although always with an altogether sly smile on his face.

'THE DROP'

Evidence for Keenan's alledged sabotage of the robot has been hard to come by, but one incident has stuck in the mind of many commentators, and has since been dubbed 'The Drop that was heard around the....lab'. One afternoon while Harte was away at a 'meeting' in the Student Union Bar, Keenan was seen to 'drop' the group's robot prototype to the ground in a quite deliberate manner. Several eye witnesses gave accounts of the incident. Anthea 'The Distractaur' Middleton stated 'Tony was up to something treacerous over in the corner near the locker where their robot was stored. There was an air of subtefuge in the lab that day. When he lifted the robot from it's holding he, in a very calm and collected manner, released the robot from his grasp and stood motionless and undaunted as the robot came apart in million pieces across the lino floor. I'm not surprised, this is the kind of treachernous and sedition we've come to expect in this game of kings'. Anthea is of course an uncredible witness due to the fact that whenever she is questioned about the event, she has usually wandered off to look at something colourful or type a dirty search word into some unwitting students google box or climb something dangerous before the line of questioning can be completed. Eoin Morrisey was heard to remark 'Eh...you should of put a spoiler on that Tony.' Stevie 'The Fire' Byrne was, as always, nowhere to be seen and/or sitting on his computer playing a flashgame, completely unaware of the historical ramifications and sigificance of what was congealing around him.

CURRENTLY

Keenan currently lives on a chicken farm in Laois with his wife and 16 children and repeatedly refuses to pass any further remark on the matter. He also owns a share in the soft drinks company Cidona. Harte continues to flex his intellectual muscles at the heart of engineering problems in Maynooth College. He claims that hundreds of applications for the Long Pole Theory are being discovered everyday, and that it may even yield the possibility of time travel in years to come. He said of the theory when asked about it in the fourth year lab recently;

‘Rarely does a theory come along who’s lattice is so intricately intertwined in every aspect of engineering, the fabric of which covers solutions to a multitude of problems and the makeup of which is so complex and undefined that nobody, not even I, the creator of the creator, can possibly begin to understand it, or even properly explain it .’

(the quote was said in the midst of a distinct grumbling, coming from the direction of Tony Keenan’s desk)

Harte is currently working on another theory, in which he aims to prove what many people have for years suspected, that is that Tony Keenan is in fact not real and a figment of our collective imaginations.

Another paper regarding Keenan entitled 'The Tony Scale: Skewing the Distribution' is currently being studied. This theory was first put forward by Anthea Middleton and begs the questions 'Do Lecturer's in the Engineering Department use Keenan's work as a scale with which to mark other students work?'.

Harte recently won the Nobel Peace Prize, when he used the Long Pole Theory to diffuse the hostilities in the Gaza Strip. The theory brought some much needed Stability to the region.