Thorpe Pool 3D Tour – 3D Model of Carleton’s Pool

3D Model of Carleton’s Pool

Project by Aaron Bronstone, Parker Johnson, and Carl Zhang

Introduction

For students on the Carleton swim team, a significant portion of time at Carleton is spent within the walls of West Gym, specifically Thorpe Pool. As a result, whether immediately recognized or not, the pool holds lots of significance to the athletes, as well as many stories and traditions that the team engages in. Since there has been talk about a new pool being needed in the near future, this project aims to document the space itself, as well as some important objects, traditions, and stories the pool holds. To do this, we used photogrammetry to create a 3D model of the pool using Metaspace, and annotated the 3D model with important story points of the swim team. Here is the model below:

Final Thorpe Pool Model v2 by bronstonea on Sketchfab

How to Navigate the Model

By clicking on the “Play” icon, you can begin looking around at the model. Zooming in can provide a clearer picture, and clicking fullscreen can make navigation easier. You can move around and zoom in by moving the mousepad, or under settings you can change the navigation to “First Person” to move with your keyboard and mouse.

In full screen or by clicking on the “View in Sketchfab” icon, annotations can be accessed easier. You can either navigate to an annotation manually, or click on the arrows on the bottom of the screen to move you to the annotation. Clicking on an annotation will bring up a story point for what the object is and/or why it’s significant to the swim team. There is also an option for “Start Autopilot”, which will automatically take you to each annotation, similar to a tour of the pool.

Additional Story Points

Due to Sketchfab having a limit of 20 annotations, not all story points were able to fit onto the model itself, so here are some additional story points / key areas of the pool:

Stretch mats – run for distance – during winter break training, the men’s team used to put the stretch mats into the pool and then try to run across all the mats (they were placed together but free floating). This activity had to be stopped when the mats started deteriorating in the pool.

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Clock with a grate covering — Clock, now covered

Clock – the clock on the wall between the record boards is covered with a metal grate to protect it from being smashed. One year, during a water polo tournament, a player threw an errant pass and the ball smashed the then unprotected clock into pieces which included a lot of glass (why a glass-cover watch was in the pool is a big question). They had to stop the tournament and drain the pool (MN ordinance requires this to be done). The new clock, which actually is hard to read and doesn’t work, is now all plastic but still has a protective grate. Don’t ask.

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Underneath the Women’s Swim & Dive Records, there is a plaque signifying a gift of a scoreboard to the swim & dive program from the team members who were from the class of 1936. The timing scoreboard is not longer there (it was taken out in 1993 and replaced with the current timing scoreboard).

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Bench relays – long ago and on special days, the swim teams used to put the wooden benches in the pool for relays with 5-7 team members on each bench. This tradition ended after benches started losing paint.

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Bench Parker passed out on — Pass out bench

Pass out bench – during his second practice ever with the team (which was during the Hour of Power), Parker Johnson ’23 began to feel light headed, and almost passed out on the far bench 10 minutes into the hour. The Hour of Power is no joke!

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Mesh bags – Swimmers hang their mesh bags on these hooks to dry them after practice. There is occasionally confusion about whose bag is whose.

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Diving TV and radiator used by divers to stay warm. Ironically, the radiant heater is located above the pool’s general heating thermostat so when the heater is on, it actually shuts off the heating required to keep the rest of the main pool area warm, causing temperature swings during meets.

Andy’s face – Taken during the 2022 Halloween practice, the picture features coach Andy with sunglasses and a mustache, with a sunglasses and mustache T-shirt. I wonder when that got up there?

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Alumni meet: Each year in October, alumni from Carleton swim and dive come back to Northfield to challenge the current students to some fun swimming events.
Men’s team entry: Even though it was deemed too dangerous to perform by head coach Andy Clark, this men’s team custom of diving in sideways next to oncoming teammates will live on in memory (and through this and this video).