it would appear that some graduates at the University of East Anglia (UEA) in Norwich have been hurt by falling hats. students have been urged to mime the throwing action instead, and have hats photoshopped later. a university spokeswoman said injuries caused by falling mortarboards posed an "unacceptable risk".
it would seem that the university doesn't want a graduation day spoiled by injury but I think this non story is being whipped up by cowardly and greedy university photographers.
I propose an amalgamation of mortar boards with drone technology. take off and landings of mortar boards can be individually and safely controlled. Qapla'!-- po, May 19 2016 Only fenlanders could figure out a way to injure themselves with hats.
I say make them all wear pickelhaubes.-- MaxwellBuchanan, May 19 2016 ... with the point on the inside.
[+] for the idea.
<Pedanterie>
Sp. "Pickelhauben"
</Pedanterie>-- 8th of 7, May 19 2016 The mortarboards should be lined with enough explosives to break them up into harmless little pieces.
The tassel is the pull-fuse.
There, solved.-- FlyingToaster, May 19 2016 // harmless little pieces //
Hmmm, Total Cold Fallout mortar boards ? That's doable ...-- 8th of 7, May 19 2016 Parachute, activated by barometric altimeter. (They are very precise and tiny these days.)-- notexactly, Jun 03 2016 //injuries caused by falling mortarboards posed an "unacceptable risk"//
Great message to send to students: "You are the new generation tasked with manning the ramparts of civilization, bolstering the human condition and advancing the cause of the world's people through the many trials and tribulations that the world always has, and always will pose. Although other generations have survived plague, famine, Nazis, the great depression AND little flying cardboard squares, you are too weak to deal with the latter so just pretend to throw them you little pussies."
Bunning this because it would be even more dangerous to have hundreds of sharp spinning propellers whizzing around in a humming swarm of little square hats than just tossing a bunch of cardboard into the air.
Sounds like a great way for students to tell their former brainwashing overlords that they are now free of the hive-mind, pussification mentality of their college professors.
And if we're really serious about this, why not just replace the cardboard in those dumb hats with foam? Nerf hats.
Hmm. Maybe I'll patent that, get a scumbag lawyer and file a class action suit against any institution that doesn't use my product.-- doctorremulac3, Jun 03 2016 Given that accidents do happen when humans are involved in such dangerous activities as throwing hats, proposed is a wireless network to initiate a small propellant charge to synchronistically launch the hats into the air, thus putting the "mortar" into "mortarboards".-- FlyingToaster, Jun 03 2016 ^ [+]-- 8th of 7, Jun 03 2016 random, halfbakery