In honor of Tech’s 125th birthday year, we’re partnering with Georgia Tech Alumni Magazine to highlight a piece of Tech history. This issue’s topic: a prototype of the 1996 Summer Olympic Games torch.

The following excerpt is number 67 on the list “125 Pieces of Tech History,” featured in the September/October 2010 issue of Georgia Tech Alumni Magazine:

Among the Institute’s mementos from the 1996 Summer Olympic Games in Atlanta is a protoype of the torch. Components of the torch were developed by a six-member team at Tech led by then-mechanical engineering professor Sam Shelton, also a Tech alumnus. Equipped with a dual-burner system, the 3.5-pound lighted torch could withstand rain showers and wind up to about 50 mph and held enough fuel to burn for 45 minutes. It was powerful enough that the team was asked to engineer components for the torch that opened the 2002 Winter Olympics in Salt Lake City.