Just Accurate Enough (Sci-Fi Films)
With its 1977 debut, this film had plenty of stars, including Mark Hamill and Harrison Ford. One notable star featured in the film had a habit of blowing up planets.
Star Wars (it was renamed to Star Wars: A New Hope later, so Star Wars is acceptable)
Important for any labs, this important gear is universally shortened to three letters
Personal Protective Equiptment (PPE)
What does V.I.P.U.R. stand for?
Vertically Integrated Program for Undergraduate Research
From phones to fridges, this booming industry was originally deemed a failed pipe dream by Dartmouth College
AI - Artificial Intelligence
Ryan Gosling probably only helped produce this movie to go back to space before gas prices went up any more.
Project Hail Mary (2026)
The creature from this unforgettable 80’s SciFi/Horror film is featured as a unique killer in the hit horror game “Dead by Daylight.”
Alien (1979)
This document should be read before dealing with any chemicals or safety hazards
SDS (safety data sheet)
This ODU professor started the program
Dr. Orlando Ayala
This long mechanical component is a wheel’s best friend
Axle
This large, sharp, motorized manufacturing machine has a pretty ugly reputation. Famous among machinists, “ The Russian ____ Video” demonstrates why.
Lathe
This space adventure/SciFi film made its protagonist use human feces to survive, although that may not be how it works in real life...
The Martian (2015)
What you should read before operating a machine or process
SOP (Standard Operating Procedure)
The first course code is ____197
UNIV
This revolutionary technology launched in 2007 is now being rejected on a mass scale to reclaim personal time.
Smartphone / iPhone
Famously known as the father of classical physics, he wrote the three laws of motion.
Issac Newton
This extremely serious and emotionally draining, 9-hour trilogy can’t be discussed without side-tracking to mention a children’s show.
Avatar
What do you do instead of sniffing a substance directly in the lab?
“Waft” it towards you
What the “vertically” means in VIPUR
Students from all years work together, and the courses progress linearly throughout your years at ODU.
Now an entire career path, this visual concept was named and coined by Apple in 1993 with the rise of the graphical user interfaces (GUIs) developed by researchers at Xerox PARC in the 1970s and popularized by Apple and Microsoft in the 1980s.
User Interface (UI) Design (Commonly paired and written UI/UX)
Reaching new peaks of $7,000, this high-demand computer component is running the pockets of the global nerd population!
Graphical Unit Processor
This 1999 blockbuster came as a wake-up call to what sci-fi and film editing as a whole can be; winning an Academy Award for its iconic “Bullet Time” effect. It also coined many terms that would later become popular in the manosphere.
The Matrix
True or False: It doesn’t matter if you eat in the laboratory.
FALSE! ALWAYS assume air and materials in the lab are contaminated!
The kind of courses that VIPUR can count as in your degree
Research, and/or technical elective
The circuit building block of all computing and logic gates
Transistor!
The most famous annual meteor shower
The Perseids (due to their high rate of meteors and peak in summer)