This unique sun-dial-inspired contraption seems too delicate to stand.

Truthfully, the clamor it makes when it falls, steel striking concrete, is frequently heard echoing through the halls of the Art Department, but the charm of the piece is not lessened by its habitual collapsing.

This spindly affront to gravity won best of sculpture in the semi-annual juried student art exhibition, which is currently showing in the gallery.

The guest juror this year was the world renowned northern realist painter Bill Brody, who has had paintings exhibited in the Smithsonian and is a professor emeritus here at UAF.

"[Brody] said he liked it a lot," said Mike Mertes, 50-year-old father of four and the creator of "Trajectory" who was awed by Brody's admiration of his work. "He said he liked the way it took up space."

Mertes constructed the piece as the final project for a 3-D design class. He started by building a much smaller model with wire, which would have been to scale had he been allowed to use 1-inch thick copper piping.

Instead the delicate nature of the design was a surprise when the final piece was constructed, what had been perfectly sturdy in miniature didn't work on a larger scale.

"I wanted to build something bigger than me," Mertes explained. "I didn't think it would be that delicate. It keeps falling down."

Mertes jokingly laughed that the piece's name fits a lot better now that it started falling over.

The word trajectory has two meanings; in geometry it refers to the intersection of a variety of curves that meet at a constant angle. To physicists it is the path of a moving object through space.

The piece is impressive when it is standing and is defiantly reminiscent of a sun dial.

The end comes to a point then branches off into three legs as it works its way down. All the lines are muted by the way they curl like delicate tendrils.

Its shadow is equally delicate and spindly. It looks like perfect cursive or the world's largest corkscrew.