IVCC to host 29th annual MIMIC Fair

This year’s MIMIC Fair at Illinois Valley Community College will feature displays unearthed from the MIMIC vaults as well as new designs to delight fairgoers.

A Night at the Museum is the 2024 theme. Students will showcase their engineering and design products from 9 a.m. to 2 p.m. Wednesday, April 17, in CTC 124.

The fair is open to the public. Most products will be offered for sale; one large one may be offered as a raffle prize.

The storage shelves outside Dorene Data’s computer-aided design lab are bursting with inventions that students designed over the 20-plus years that MIMIC has evolved, which Data intends to bring to light again to commemorate the college’s centennial.

Displays might include a bat nesting house, a shopping bag carrier or a pizza slicer that cuts perfect slices, among other treasures from the archives.

Products have ranged from home decor and gadgets to leisure items or space and time savers.

Data’s current design students, meanwhile, have been working for weeks designing, building, testing and, in some cases, redesigning and retesting.

“They see the process. How does anything get made? You keep trying until it works,” Data said.

The hardest part, she said, is coming up with an idea.

“The world has so much already. How do you still thrill anybody?” Data said.

Kenny Harsted knows all about tweaking and retweaking. He estimated that it has taken him 36 tries to improve on a drink coaster design because it didn’t work properly or look as attractive as he wanted. His hook is its novelty – “for when you get bored at your desk,” he said.

Faith Pack accepts the challenge of repeated design attempts.

“It takes multiple designs and patience,” Pack said. “Failing is a part of it – fixing it is the only way you’ll get it perfect.”

She loves plants, so it was only natural that she’d develop a planter she’d enjoy herself and one that would fit any sunlit window.

“I really like plants, and I wanted to learn macrame, so this was an excuse to do both,” Pack said.

Convenience also is behind Josh Washkowiak’s bubble terrarium, a complete piece of decor that makes it easy to dress up bare walls.

The secret to his designs: “Keep it simple. People like and will buy simple. Something doesn’t have to be complicated to be unique.”

Washkowiak struggled on another project when a 3D rendering didn’t turn out as expected and some components didn’t hold up. He said projects help him learn to manage his time. When a project still didn’t work as a deadline got closer, he forced himself to stop and focus on another design that was progressing. He said he hasn’t given up but will get back to the first project when he has the time to do it properly.

Tyler Graves’s project fused a love of woodworking, design and family. He built a multilevel plant tree out of scrap lumber because his wife needed someplace to display her plants. He worked to overcome design challenges that reclaimed wood scraps created.

Projects, he added, “are like puzzles.”

MIMIC emerged as a multidisciplinary program 29 years ago to involve business, marketing and design students in designing, manufacturing, marketing and selling a product. Invention is only half the battle; their pitch to buyers and fluent accounts of the creation are part of the grade, too.

MIMIC mimics the real business world, which lends it its name originally, but faculty members gave the acronym meaning. Making Industry Meaningful in College caught the attention of colleges and high schools that based similar programs off IVCC’s.

Over the years, Data has supervised hundreds of different products.

“I’ve seen it all,” she said.

Yet, even the funkiest prototype can be a predictor of things to come.

“Two or three years later, something just like it comes on the market,” Data said.

One student even secured a temporary patent for a design.

For information, email Data at dorene_data@ivcc.edu.