Most Iowa State students who have heard about the class Design Studies 129 have probably heard of Professor Bill Boon.

Boon, professor in landscape architecture, teaches the popular course titled “Intro to Creativity.”

Students have said Boon’s teaching style is anything from eccentric to electrifying, and as a person he is one of a kind.

Born in Topeka, Kan., Boon moved to Ames in 1963. He worked for 10 years at a local architecture firm, and in 1973 he was offered a job at ISU in the landscape architecture department.

When the Design Center was built, Boon was put into a classroom with two other professors to teach a new class — Design 129.

After a few years, the other two professors who taught the course stopped. With free reign to do what he wanted, Boon decided to add a more creative element to the class.

“For that very first project, the students were to design an apparatus that could launch a water balloon at a target,” he said. “It had to be able to be set off while standing at least six feet away from the apparatus.

“If you hit the target you get an ‘A,’ if you get it wet you get a ‘B,’ and if you showed up you got a ‘C,'” Boon said. “So it wasn’t a difficult thing, but I was the target, and that’s what made it fun.”

Other class projects Boon said he has dreamt up include walking on Lake Laverne, sleeping in cardboard boxes like the homeless, rolling stones that had to have a person in them, building football kicking machines and basketball shooting robots and designing original pumpkin smashers.

Boon has another new project lined up for this semester.

“This year we’re having a Homecoming parade,” he said. “We’ve never had a Homecoming parade before, so I thought this would be something different.”

The stipulations for the floats, Boon said, are that none of the floats can be on a motorized vehicle, or even have wheels. Instead, all floats must be carried by a single person for the entire length of the parade route.

The parade, which will have a Mardi Gras theme, is open to anyone who wants to enter and meets the requirements.

Despite the fun countless students have had in his classes, Boon said he does not really enjoy it that much.

“It looks easy, but it isn’t. When the class is over at the semester, I am very glad,” he said.

Even though Boon feels it is not fun to teach, he has high hopes for the course, which is his brainchild.

“It’s a class meant to stimulate the student and show them the joy of learning,” he said. “It’s a class that tries to help bring back the child in the students.

“Hopefully, it will make the students better people,” Boon said. “I want it to instill the integrity and honesty and God-fearingness that good people have.”