A Couple Of Nerds Got 36 iMac Boxes And Made An iWheel

This is what happens when you have a boring ass job.

It all started with 36 cardboard boxes, a few rolls of packing tape and one big idea. For more than a year, systems administrator Mike Campadore had been stashing away iMac boxes whenever the university ordered new computers, noting that the slightly angled shape of the boxes could create a giant wheel if he collected enough of them. He thought it might make a fun toy for his daughter. The result, however, was something no one expected – a viral photo and video that would reach millions around the world.

It all started inconspicuously enough when, on a sunny Friday afternoon in July, Campadore asked IT coworker Rich Bass to help him complete the wheel and the two rolled it out on the quad for a spin. A photo shared by the university marketing department on Facebook quickly found its way to Reddit, Imgur, Tumblr and Twitter, where it went viral, viewed more than 3 million times within hours.

More: Facebook, George Fox University, Reddit

The “iWheel” weighs 120 pounds and was initially just a photo. Then when the Internet caught wind of what was going down, they demanded to see a video:

Soon Photoshop hobbyists began inserting what became known as the “iWheel” into a variety of scenarios, from running with the bulls to scenes from movies like Ben-Hur and Interstellar: