Do you ever watch the clock during class wishing for the time to go by quickly?  Well, back in the mid-1970s, watching the clock during class at Cincinnati State (then called Cincinnati Technical College – CTC) was not possible.  All 200-plus clocks at the college had stopped working at some point in the mid-1970s and, for a while, nobody could figure out why.

It was discovered that the culprit was the installation of some duct work for the college’s air conditioning system.  Apparently, some construction workers accidentally cut and pulled some old wires which were part of the master clock system installed in the building when it was built in 1952.

Fortunately, 2 engineering technologies students accepted the task of returning the college to Eastern Standard Time.  Stephen Froehle and James McGee applied knowledge they learned in the electro-mechanical program at the college to work on the clocks for a project in their design class.  The students completed the project after 110 hours of work, which was completed mostly in the evening, so as not to disturb classes.  All in all, the project costs the college only $6.39.  Both students received an “A” in the course for all their hard work.

For more information on this project, check out this article from The Hill News July 25, 1978 issue.