COLUMBUS, OHIO – A recent email from The Ohio State University early this morning has announced that funding will be divested from current wireless networks—osuwireless, eduroam and WIFI@OSU—which will be phased out on the Columbus campus by Feburary 1st. This comes after frequent complaints from students who claim to have issues connecting to online streaming services, the Grubhub app, and Carmen Canvas at 11:59 PM on Sunday nights.
In its stead, the university has proposed a new project called the Squirrel Liberation Over-Active Framework, or SLO-AF for short.
Beginning in February, campus squirrels trained by undergraduate psychology and animal sciences students will begin delivering packets of information that would normally be transported through wireless networks to and from computers. In a diagram provided by an undergraduate involved in the project, the squirrels will be equipped with a tiny parcel full of scrolls of text and a tiny “THE” jacket.
“These newly trained squirrels will allow us a faster way to complete Carmen quizzes, access the front-page of Grubhub, and to use the new-and-improved Buckeyelink site,” stated Chris P. Ratt, an animal sciences major involved in the SLO-AF project. “I’ve sat in the Berry Café for too long waiting for the Grubhub app to load so I could order a bagel and lodge it in the toaster full of cream cheese.”
The new times of arrival via carrier squirrel will range between ten minutes and the 48-hour period it takes to train another squirrel after the previous squirrel has been run over by a Grubhub robot.
“We wanted to train pigeons, but they just kept slamming into the windows at Denney Hall,” explained Ratt. “We figured we had enough squirrels on campus to make this work.”
The project will also rely on students to be able to catch the squirrels and put the information in their parcels—whether it may be details for an order at Mirror Lake Eatery, or private financial aid information.
“We’re still working out the kinks with ensuring the squirrels don’t run off and lose students’ credit card information,” a spokesperson claimed in the email. “But it’s mostly safe.”
Written by Grey Romohr