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Pac-Man, Blinky make MIT ‘hack’ appearance

Pac-Man and the red ghost Blinky have appeared on the top of Building 10 at MIT.David L. Ryan/Globe Staff

Pac-Man was perched on top of MIT’s Great Dome for a while Friday before being removed by facilities crews, the institute’s facilities office said.

The iconic 1980s video game character was accompanied by one of his adversaries, the red ghost Blinky, and his placement was the latest in a tradition of pranks involving the top of the building.

Crews have recently been working on the dome, said Officer Edward Castadoro of the campus police force at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. The dome tops Building 10, Barker Engineering Library.

Castadoro said Pac-Man and Blinky, like other prank installations, were eventually taken down. “[We)] usually don’t allow stuff to stay up,” he said.

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Pranks of this type, known as hacks, are a tradition, showing off students’ technical abilities, rebellious streak, and quirky sense of humor.

Other things that have appeared on the dome have included replicas of a firetruck, the Apollo lunar module, an MBTA Red Line train car, the Wright brothers’s plane, and a snowman.


Lauren Dezenski can be reached at lauren.dezenski@globe.com.