Students who saw the extraneous windows hanging from the steel structure that was welded to the patio of the Forum Building this week were not hallucinating.

The decorative windows facing Curtin Road are not an elaborate prank, but rather the invention of the first-year architecture students, who have recently erected multiple structures in the same vicinity.

After forming groups and choosing the sites on which to build their end-of-year projects, the students' work now displays the culmination of the architectural knowledge they have acquired from their first year in the program.

While the construction of a military tank made from Natural Light beer cans may be a curious form of educational experience, professors in the architecture department supported the students' efforts.

Jodi LaCoe, assistant professor of architecture, said the first-year students were given just eight weeks to go through the whole architectural process. This includes finding and documenting the site, coming up with ideas, developing a design together as a group, planning for construction, gathering the materials, staying within a budget and finally building the structure.

"[The students] are not just drawing, they are building," she said. "The project is very hands-on and direct with materials. This is our first-year philosophy."

LaCoe said the group dynamic is also a huge factor in the design projects.

"The more hands you have to help out, the better," she said.

Kate Grimes (freshman-architecture) said she experienced the importance of working in a group firsthand with her project.

"[The project] was really overwhelming, but the fact that we're in groups makes it a lot better because everyone in the group is good at something different," she said.

Her group is responsible for the windows and the steel arch next to the Forum Building.

"We wanted to use windows somehow to play off the podium and the circular configuration of Forum," she said.

She said one tactic the group used to stay under budget was salvaging windows from campus buildings that were being taken down, so they were all free.

This structure, along with the rest of the first-year projects, was unveiled this past Sunday and will stand for the rest of the week. During this time, professors within the Architecture Department critiqued each structure.

LaCoe said the main point in the critique is to prove that each project is structurally sound. Then, the other innovative aspects of the structure are considered for the final grade on the project.

Leslie Cornelius (freshman-architecture) said her group did its best to make its "Natty Light" armored tank a sturdy and safe structure so it could be displayed prominently in front of the Palmer Museum for the entire week.

They reinforced the cans and bottles to be sure there was no safety hazard. However, the Office of Physical Plant -- a Penn State administrative department responsible for all structures on campus, among other things -- still deemed the project unsafe. The tank was supposed to stand at its intended site for only 24 hours, but the group was still glad they could make a statement with the project.

"[Our project] displays the fact that you can go to war at 18, but you cannot drink at 18," Cornelius said.

Another group called upon their ingenuity to find a way to ventilate their structure, which uses mirrors to project an image from the outside into a pitch-black room, without emitting light.

Lauren Polacheck (freshman-architecture), a member of this group, said there were many setbacks before they successfully completed their final design. She said it is easy for the personalities of each person in her group to come out and for some people to emerge as leaders. She also said dividing her group into smaller groups, such as research and communications, helped move the project along.

"Working in little groups is easy, but there are so many groups that add up to help with the building of the whole structure," she said.

Polacheck's group partner, Melissa Rodriguez (freshman-architecture), said this project has taught her that to be successful in architecture, all you really need to have is creativity.

"You don't have to know how to draw, you just have to have the instinct of what [the structure] is going to look like," she said.

For George Konel (freshman-architecture), imagining what his group's structure was going to look like was not a very difficult task, because it was building upon an already existing structure.

His group modified a standing shed in the area behind the baseball fields. This undertaking may seem trivial, but their motive for choosing this particular location and project is what makes it worthwhile for Konel.

The group's shed will benefit Professor James Kalsbeek and his class, who spend their Saturdays working to restore bricks from the 100-foot long pile that once belonged to the old architecture building.

"Our shed will help the professor by giving him a place to store his tools and save him the time it used to take to lug them back and forth," Konel said.

Professor Kalsbeek is grateful to Konel and his group.

"Having this shed will be a huge benefit for our work days," Kalsbeek said. "It will be a great structure and I'm glad that these young architects get to design, build and budget."

Kalsbeek said that each first-year project that has been erected gives the students a sense of the totality of the design process.

Konel said he is also glad he had this opportunity to develop his skills, especially here at Penn State.

"At other schools you would just sit on a computer all day. Here you can get the hands-on experience," he said.