A marble machine symbolizing the number of people who die daily from AIDS will be part of today's World AIDS Day events.

"It's a powerful visual representation of the devastation that AIDS has on a daily basis around the world," said Christine MacAulay (senior-international politics), founding president of the Global Aids Initiative (GAI), a student group at Penn State.

The machine, consisting of aluminum ramps and tubes, is about 4 feet long and 5 feet tall and will be located in HUB Alumni Hall all day today.

A marble will be released to travel through the machine to represent how often a person dies from AIDS around the world -- about once every 11 seconds.

But machine designer Steve Veloski (senior-industrial engineering) said the machine might be a little bit off, dropping one marble every five seconds.

Event organizers are not concerned.

"Not getting that specific is not at all a problem," said GAI member Beth Hardy (sophomore-economics).

"[Veloski]'s been absolutely great in building it."

Similar machines have been created for hunger relief awareness events at other universities, MacAulay said.

Veloski said he has enjoyed building the machine.

"It sounded like an interesting project," he said.

The machine is just one part of the World AIDS Day events at University Park. GAI members hope that after today, Penn State students will realize AIDS can affect everyone.

"We want people to walk away from World AIDS Day to realize the extent of the global AIDS pandemic and that it doesn't need to be that way," MacAulay said.

Information about AIDS will be available in HUB Alumni Hall from 9 a.m. to 5 p.m. More than 100 groups are co-sponsoring the events, MacAulay said.