Welcome to the City of Columbia Planning Commission, members, staff and guests. We ask for your patience during this virtual meeting. Multiple staff members are behind the scenes. With us today are Lucinda Statler, Planning Administrator, Rachel Bailey, Zanning Administrator, Jonathan Chambers, Land Development Administrator, Andrew Livinggood, Annexation Coordinator. During the meeting you will see live images or still images of Planning Commission members and the Administrator. However, images of the applicant and public will not be visible. In addition to watching the meeting virtually, the public will be able to participate in several methods. You can email, phone, log into a web session, or participate in person. When participating, please provide your name for documentation purposes. If you would like to watch the meeting, the public may stream the meetings through CityTV accessed at www.youtube.com slash user slash Columbia SC government. To email, you may submit letters and statements via email to cocboardmeeting at columbiasc.gov leading up to and or during the meeting as this account will be monitored during the meetings. Emails and letters sent during the meeting will be read into the record. Emails and letters received prior to the meeting have been forwarded to the Commission. The public may participate via phone. You may call<PHONE_NUMBER>. When prompted, please enter the meeting code 8688. If you're here today to speak about a case, you must speak up when the chairperson calls for public comment. And I will now call the roll. Mr. Cohn. Present. Ms. Davis. Here. Ms. Hartz. Here. Ms. Thomas. Here. Mr. Tupper. Here. And Ms. James. Here. We have a quorum. Brief review of the meeting format. Applicants with requests before the Planning Commission are allowed at a presentation time of 10 minutes. This time should include but is not limited to an overview of the project, case history, and any pertinent meetings held regarding the request. This time also includes all persons presenting information on behalf of the applicants such as attorneys, engineers, and architects. This time limit does not include any questions asked by the Planning Commission or staff regarding request. Presenters of the general public are given the opportunity to address their concerns in intervals of two minutes. The administrator has a timer and will make presenters aware of when their time has expired. The Planning Commission reserves the right to amend these procedures on a case-by-case basis. The Planning Commission uses the consent agenda to approve non-controversial or routine matters by a single motion and bid. Examples of such items include approval of site plans, annexations, and street names. If a member of the Planning Commission or the general public wants to discuss an item on the consent agenda, that item is removed from the consent agenda and considered during the meeting. The Planning Commission then approves the remaining consent agenda items. We've just had one change since publication. Case number 6, which is S-Plan 2021-0017 on Atlas Road, has been deferred. So other than that, the agenda stands. And I'll go ahead and read the consent agenda items. The first item is to approve the August 2nd, 2021 minutes. The second item under the Future Land Use Map Amendment and Zoning Map Amendment for pending annexation is annexation-2021-0016 at 7800 Garner's Ferry Road. This is a request to annex the property and assign a land use classification of Community Activity Center and assign a zoning of general commercial at the time of annexation. The property is currently classified as medium density and zoned GC by Richland County. Case number 3 is annexation-2021-0014, annex 3900 River Drive, also known as 3800 River Drive. This is a request to annex the property and assign a land use classification of urban core mixed residential type 2 and assign zoning of employment campus at the time of annexation. The property is currently classified as mixed use corridor and zoned GC by Richland County. Under site plan review on the consent agenda, case number 4, S-Plan-2021-0016, 294 Harveston, Boulevard request site plan approval for the construction of a restaurant with a drive-through. This is the Chick-fil-A. The property is zoned PUD, Planned Unit Development Commercial. Case number 5, S-Plat-2021-0058, 4.23 acres, the 100 block of Island View Circle, request site plan approval for the construction of a five-lot single-family residential subdivision T-Box Court. The property is zoned PUD, our Planned Unit Development Residential. Case 6 was deferred, as I mentioned, and case number 7 is a street name, dash 2021-0003, name a street within the Wood Creek Townhome Subdivision, Hibiscus Leaf Way, the property is zoned PUDR, or Residential Planned Unit Development. Okay, is there anyone from the Planning Commission that would like any item removed from the consent agenda? Do we want to ask if anybody's here to speak regarding one of these items, if anybody from the audience? That's the next, yeah, the next prompt. Oh. Okay, is there anyone from the public, either in person or virtually, that would like to have an item removed from the consent agenda? When participating, please provide your name for the minutes. Please communicate by sending an email to cocboardmeeting at columbiasc.gov. Please communicate via phone by pressing star two to leave a voicemail or star three to speak in person. We will pause to allow communication from the public. The phone number is<PHONE_NUMBER>. The meeting code is 8688. I guess we can ask also if there is anyone in person, since that wasn't a prompt. Okay, do we have anyone in person that would like to speak regarding the consent agenda? I said would anybody else from the public like to speak? Okay, we're hearing none. Do I have a motion and a second? I apologize. I'm still actually waiting for people calling in, and I apologize because it does seem like it takes forever, but there's about a 30-second lag. Okay. I know I need hearing aids, but you could just please speak how I would appreciate it. Okay. Sure. I do not have any callers on the line. Okay. Hearing none, do I have a motion and a second to accept the consent agenda, subject to all conditions contained in the case summaries? I'll make the motion to approve the consent agenda in the August minutes. Okay. Do we have a second? Second. All in favor, say aye. All opposed, say no. Aye. Aye. Motion carried. The Planning Commission will now move forward with those items on the regular agenda. Regular agenda items will be presented by staff. We will use the following outline for regular agenda items. The administrator will introduce the case. The applicant will have 10 minutes to make a presentation. Planning Commission may ask questions. The public will be allowed to participate via email, voicemail, voice in person, or via the web. Planning Commission may ask additional questions of the applicant. Okay. So the Planning Commission will now move forward with those items on the regular agenda. Thank you, Madam Chair. That's going to take us to item number eight, which is S Plan 2021-0014. And this is a request to construct a five-unit town homestyle multifamily residential development. This 15,396-square-foot parcel is located within the 2,200 block of Blossom Street at the corner of Blossom Street and Lowndes Road. The applicant is proposing a group development that again will contain five attached units in a town home configuration. Some of the existing trees on the site will remain, whereas the ones that are located within the building footprint will be removed. Each unit will have two off-street parking spaces that will be accessed from Blossom Street. A little bit of background. This project was previously approved in 1985, but was never constructed. And although the project was approved in 1985, the project has lost its vesting, and so reviewing approval is currently required. And if the current application is approved by the Planning Commission, the applicant would have two years from the date of the approval to obtain permits for the necessary construction. And at this time, I believe the applicant is present and can go into further detail about his case. Hello. Hello. My name's Craig Stoneburner. I'm asking for site plan approval again of the five-unit townhouse project in Five Boins. I'm probably one of the oldest developers to come before you recently, but this has been a dream of mine since 1977 when we first bought the property. Since then, you had the markets go up and down, you had partners that you had to buy out that didn't want to take the risk on it, and so forth and so on. And during that time, it was approved, and I knew I could eventually do it. Every time there was discussion about a change of zoning, I would call Jonathan or whoever and say, is it going to affect my property. It happened several times. It never affected it. This time, it would change it to two duplexes, like student duplexes or whatever, and that would kill me to see that done. I don't know if you've seen the renderings or whatever, but it's designed after the kind of the garden district, New Orleans townhouses. A lot of character, and we spent a lot of time on it. And during that time, I did two mid-rise condominium projects in Five Boins and another 13-unit project up in Shandon. So there's always something to do. This was the one I figured one day I would get it done. I would just hate to see it be two duplexes. I think it would be a great project for the neighborhood. Definitely upgrade the area. We waited for Hill Hardware to clean up their lumber yard across the street. This is kind of next to Fiddler House. We tried to get a lot, and about the only thing we've done with it is try to keep it up and park cars during St. Patrick's Day. But anyway, my kids did that, and I would hope that you would prove it again so that I could see it through. If you have any questions, I'll be glad to try to answer them. I do have a question. All right. I saw that Mr. Chambers had sent you an email asking, had you talked over the project with Shannon Neighborhood Council, and you did say you talked to the president. Were they okay with this project? Yes, and I have a letter in the file where it was approved by the Shannon Neighborhood Council in the past. Historic Columbia Foundation, the University of South Carolina, went to everybody. This time I went to Andrew Parks and the president of the neighborhood to tell them what I was doing, and if you had any questions, let me know, send pictures of it and the whole thing. And he knew where it was, and I said I can't believe anybody in the neighborhood would rather have rental duplexes on the property, but you never know. And he said, I'll have, if anybody has a question, I'll have them contact you. And they did their homework and checked on it. To my knowledge, there's nobody, I'm sure there's somebody opposed to everything, but I doubt there's anybody opposed to this project versus what the options could be. Thank you. Okay. Are there any follow-up questions from the planning commission members? I have one question, please. Okay. Looking at the renderings on the third floor of these apartments, it seemed to be an open deck. Is my interpretation correct on that? A recreation? No. No. Okay. There are two of them that have porches. Okay. They're open deck. Okay. All right. Thank you. I mean, I have, I'd like to see copies of the old letters in the... Sure. You can send that around. My grand or whatever. I do have a question. So what you have, or what you're about to present to us, is from 85 or is it correct? I think it started in 77, and then it was re-approved I think in 85 or something of that nature. Okay. So it's from that time frame? Okay. When I applied for this permit, it was approved. I mean, it was approved. But it wasn't going to be developed immediately before this planning commission hearing. So I was told to get this in ahead of time. Okay. This is... Thank you. I'll pass it down on your own. Okay. Thank you. This is rendering that I've had in my office for all these years, knowing at some point that it would be part of five points. Thank you. We encourage those who would like to comment via email or the web to begin sending in letters and emails. Email could be sent to the COC board meeting at colombiasc.gov or on the web at https.backslash-public-input.com backslash-cocpc-september-no-sep-sept-2021. For those wanting to leave a voicemail or speak live, call<PHONE_NUMBER>. When prompted, please enter the meeting code 8688, then press star 2 to leave a voicemail or press star 3 to speak live. Please be sure your computer audio is off to avoid feedback. First, we would like to hear from anyone in the audience who would like to speak. Okay. Please come up. Can you say your name, please? Judy Anderson. And I'm with the Shandan Neighborhood Council over the zoning committee. And this gentleman indeed has spoken with Mr. Clarkson. However, Mr. Clarkson, this has not come before the council. We actually were meeting in a few minutes, but we have not, the council has not reviewed this application since the 1977. So it has not actually been approved by the council. Yes, indeed, he did speak to Mr. Clarkson. Mr. Clarkson is the president of the council, but it needs to go before the council. Okay. It actually was the information we were giving to Mr. Clarkson immediately upon working doing this with Jonathan. And it was before their last meeting.  Don't know if that's a requirement that goes back before them again or whatever, but he said he would go to the committee and tell them about it and so forth and so on. Okay. We will now hear comments that have been received in writing. We do not have any emails that have come through about this case. Okay. We will now hear any voice emails received as well from those calling in live. We'll wait for a minute. Have we received any new correspondence or are there any new callers in the key to speak? Still no emails. And I do not have any callers. I wish to speak. Okay. Do I have a motion? Question prior to a motion. This for Lucinda and Jonathan. Is this just so I'm correct. This is only to approve the site plan. If there was another, if the project was to proceed, the actual vertical construction would have a separate review. The vertical construction would be reviewed at permitting. Okay. But this is for the site, this is for the site plan and this is not architectural review. Okay. Thank you. Do I have a motion? I'll take a shot at it. I'll make the motion that we approve the applicant's request for site plan approval of a five unit town homestyle multifamily residential development at 2200 Blossom street in accordance with the requirements of staff recommendations. Okay. Do I have a second? Second. All in favor say aye. Aye. All opposed say no. Okay. I'll have a motion hearing. Okay. We can move on to number nine on the agenda. Thank you. Thank you. That's going to take us to item number nine, which is S plan 2021 dash 0015, which is located at 22 22 Main Street. This project entails the construction of a 30 331,306 square foot three story multifamily mixed use building on 5.3 acres within the block bounded by North Main Street, Scott Street, Sumter Street, Franklin Street and Cotton Town Way. The proposed building will contain 250 units, an amenity space, parking garage, surface parking. The required off street parking spaces for this development is 400, whereas the applicant will be providing 407 with a combination of parking garage parking and surface parking spaces. The applicant has provided a traffic impact study, which has been reviewed and approved by the city's traffic engineer. And I believe the applicant is available via zoom to add additional comments. Are there any follow up questions from the planning commission members? Okay. Hearing none. Hearing none. We encourage those who'd like to comment via email or the web to begin sending in letters and emails. Emails need to be forwarded to CAC board meeting at columbiasc.gov or on the web at H2TPS backslash backslash publicinput.com backslash CACPC dash SCPT 201 For those wanting to leave a voicemail or speak live, call<PHONE_NUMBER>. When prompted, please enter the meeting code 8688 then press star 2 to leave a voicemail or press star 3 to speak live. Please be sure your computer audio is off to avoid feedback. First, is the applicant here or is anyone in the audience who would like to speak? I think we are trying to get the applicant on zoom, I believe, to make some additional presentation. Okay. This is Steve Middleton. I'm here. I have, yeah. I have this, I have about a 45 second delay in what I'm saying, so that if I'm listening to people talk, I get two tracks of talking, one that's sort of live time and another one in the background that's about 45 seconds later. So I'm not, I was attempting to call in, but that's not going to work. So I'll, if it's okay, I'll go ahead and give my presentation and then. I have this, I have about a, I'll just have to deal with questions as they come up. I think that'll work. I'm listening to people talk. Okay. I'm sorry about all that. I've never had it before. So I'm not sure what it's all about. Anyway, my name is Steve Middleton. I'm the president of Commonwealth properties. We are a small privately held real estate investment and development company been in business for about 23 years. We are located in Richmond, Virginia, but really no strangers to Columbia, South Carolina. We've developed three previous projects in Columbia to up the northeast of town in the Wildwood area and one downtown in the Vista area called Vista Commons that we opened in 2001 and still own recently spent about three and a half million dollars or so renovating the apartment interiors and the pool and building an outdoor kitchen and are now completing a clubhouse renovation. So if you'd like to come by and take a look at it, we'd love for you to take a look at it. Even though it is 20 years old, it still gets some of the highest rents in that sub market. We've been working on this, the Jim Moore Cadillac site on Main Street for almost a year now since November of 2020 have spent quite a bit of time designing, redesigning, rethinking, reconceptualizing and meeting with different groups to come up with the plan that you see before you today. We've met with downtown coalition. We've met with the Elmwood Park neighborhood and we've met with the Cottontown neighborhood. And I believe the city has a lot of support from Elmwood Park and an email of support, I hope from Cottontown, which received the last week. We got through our, we've made several presentations to design, design development review commission and got our design development review certificate at the meeting last week. Our plan is for a mixed use development that's primarily multifamily, 246 apartment, luxury apartment units and four live work units that would front on Franklin street. It's two, three story buildings that are joined by a three or four story parking garage depending on what part of it you're looking at. I will, there's been, there was some concern raised about what type of housing we would develop and this is purely luxury housing. That's what we do is basically for what is called renters by choice. It's not student housing. It's not housing. There's a, there's a place and a need for that in our world, but that is not, that is not something we do. That's sort of a specialty niche. Our apartments would have nine, 10, 12 foot ceilings, glass front cabinets in the kitchen, granite countertops, glass doors on the tubs and showers, ceiling fans in the bedrooms, ground molding, all the things that you would expect to see in today's luxury homes, stainless steel, stainless steel appliances. And then we really focus and spend a lot of time on our amenity package. Here we've got about 12,000 square foot of amenity space, which would include a fitness center, would include a co-working space, which has become even more popular in the face of the pandemic. We have a bike shop. We would have a pet spa. We have a dog, a dog park. We would feature a fourth floor club room that would have an open-air deck that overlooks one of the two courtyards on the project and in downtown would, I think provide some pretty, pretty dramatic views. The two courtyards and one of them, we have a more active courtyard and that would be a swimming pool with a heated swim spa area, an outdoor kitchen, cabanas, umbrella lounge area, that sort of thing. And then the other one is a more relaxed area, which would have cornhole, bachi ball, an outdoor yoga area, probably a putting green and just a more, we call it the chill courtyard, more relaxed area. We spent a lot of time working on the street-facing design of the buildings, incorporated some, I'll call them, vendor areas along Sumter to do two things. One, to create more street interaction and secondly, to hide the face of the parking deck. So the parking deck would have 350 parking spaces and then we have another 60 or so parking spaces. I'm having to do that off the top of my head. I know it's in the site plan package that we presented, but about 410 or so parking spaces. We commissioned a traffic study as well as a parking study. The parking study I think confirmed what our experience has been, which is that we have adequate parking for visitors as well as our guests on site. So we would not anticipate having to use any on-street parking for our needs. And then the traffic study has been reviewed by the city as well as by South Carolina DOT. They came back and said we could only have one point of entry and exit on the main street and asked us to mill and overlay and restripe a portion of main street from Elmwood up to River. So we're still negotiating with them on that, but that was their request. Our buildings are three stories. One portion of the three-story building has a basement, but for the most part, the buildings as they face the street are three-story buildings. So we think it really kind of blends and helps segue from the more commercial areas up on main street back to the historic neighborhoods that we joined. Like I said, we've done quite a bit of work on this over the past 10 or 11 months work with staff and I think have come up with what we consider to be a really excellent plan and one that we hope will be some of the nicest, if not the nicest apartments in Columbia. I mentioned that we don't do student housing. We specifically structure our leasing guidelines to exclude undergraduate students or students who are under the age of 22 who can't otherwise qualify under our income and the word net worth guideline on their own. So I suppose there might be some particularly well-hilled students who could qualify, but for the most part, they could not. We would welcome graduate students because they're a little different breed and we would expect to get from a demographic standpoint, recent graduates, young professionals, maybe not so young professionals, divorces, empty nesters, retirees. One of the, I think the great things that we've experienced recently in our apartment projects is really the inclusive demographic mix of folks that we lease to. It makes for a really, I think, wholesome community and we're looking forward to being a part of the North Maine corridor. Welcome any questions you all might have. He's one of the, I think the great things that we've experienced recently in our apartment projects is really the inclusive demographic mix of folks that we lease to. So it makes for a really, I think, wholesome community and we're looking forward to being a part of part of the North Maine corridor. Welcome any questions you all might have. Thank you. Any questions from the commissioners? I do have one and I'm sure it was said earlier. How many total apartments? It's 250. 250 apartments and 350 parking spaces? I believe it's 407. 60 being for guest parking, I believe, is what I heard. He didn't have the exact numbers. I think it says here 360 for the parking garage and 47 for the surface spaces. For a total of 407. How many total apartments? We don't separately designate guest parking areas. The parking areas are open for everyone. 250 parking spaces. Do we have anyone in the audience who would like to speak? Do we have all the comments that have been received in writing? We do have one letter that came through. Just bear with me for a second. Here's the one email that was received. This says, I support this development, but it should seek to improve multimodal infrastructure and not merely mitigate its impacts. Number one, bicycles. Currently the outside lane of Main Street is 14 feet wide shared lane. A full road diet should be considered for both northbound and southbound main, which will allow for four to five foot striped bike lanes. This will improve multimodal use and safety and should be extended to Sunset Drive. Two, new signal needed for safe crossing and to connect Elmwood Park and Contantown neighborhoods and the growing number of businesses on both sides of Main Street. Three, driveway. Full access on Main Street should line up directly across Bryan Street to meet SCDOT requirements. Plus, this could become a signal. Number four, reduced speed to 25 miles an hour. This section on Main is too fast. A recent crash at Confederate and Main almost took out a business and the people in it. Posting for 25 miles an hour will mean people drive at 30. Current speeds are 40 to 50 miles per hour on this city street. Support safety in all modes of transportation. Thanks Doug, Douglas, Giovannetti, 611 Gremont. And that's the only letter I believe we've received. Okay. We will now hear any voicemails received as well as from those calling in line. Have we received any new correspondence or are there any new callers on the queue to speak? I do not have any callers on the line at which to speak. Okay. Any further discussion from the commissioners? Any questions, concerns? Hearing none, do I have a motion? Mrs. Chair, I make a motion that we approve the site plan review case for 2222 Main Street with staff comments. Okay, is there a second? Second. All in favor say aye. Aye. All opposed say no. Ayes have it, motion period. Lisa, did you have any other business? We do not have any other business. Okay, hearing that we do not have any other business, can I get a motion to adjourn? Madam Chair, I move that we adjourn this meeting. Okay, all in favor, or can I have a second? Second. All in favor say aye. Aye. All opposed say no. Ayes have it, motion period. Meeting is adjourned.


Good evening. I don't know about you, but I've always found that one of the most important things in a game is its atmosphere. Atmosphere is incredibly important. The tone and world of a game is usually what sticks with the player long after they've beaten it, much more so than its clunky inventory mechanics or reload animations. And in my experience, a good atmosphere can keep me playing an otherwise deeply flawed game, even if I'm not actually having that much fun. Now, when most people think of atmosphere in a game, they probably think of something like Fallout, Resident Evil, or even Silent Hill. But I personally think that one of the most fascinating atmospheres in any game is actually that of Gmod. Yes. That Gmod. Now, I know that might sound silly, but just hear me out a sec. Garry's Mod is a game perhaps known best online for its wacky ragdoll physics, abrupt nuclear detonations, cringy My Little Pony in World War II German roleplay servers, and Skibbity Toilet. But beneath its goofy surface, Gmod is built from Half-Life 2, which is a grim, dystopian game with lots of dark and depressing undertones that, though usually buried deep under Gmod's signature copyright-violating insanity, can sometimes create a distinct uncanny feeling when there's not any wacky shenanigans going on to distract you.  Take for instance GM Construct, one of the most iconic sandbox levels in all of gaming. I'm sure you've seen countless memes of this place by now. It's one of the only two levels Garry's Mod comes with on its own if you haven't got any mods or other games installed, and its green grass and bright blue sky are so picturesque that the map almost feels like a crude crayon drawing made by a kindergartner or something. Construct is served as the backdrop of countless people's childhoods over the last 15 or so years, and I'm sure many watching have warm, cozy memories of time spent goofing around here with friends when we were all younger. But take the map to a single player lobby with no mods installed, and with nothing distracting you from just taking in this abstract, industrial environment, something quickly becomes obvious. This place is otherworldly. Its layout doesn't make any sense, it doesn't actually feel like or resemble any places that exist in the real world, and there's even some areas like this dark room that a lot of people have long considered to just be flat out creepy. The existential dread that humans experience in empty public transit areas, stores, and yes, even video game servers, is a phenomenon that the internet has become acutely aware of in recent years, inspiring endless discussions about liminal spaces and canopsy, defined as the eerie atmosphere of a place that is usually bustling with people but is now abandoned. As of late, a lot of people have started getting extremely tired of hearing about this since the internet hasn't really shut up about it since it first became popular.  What if I told you that it hasn't just been everyone's paranoia, that there is in fact something sinister hiding in GM constructs, and that the level's creepiness actually runs a lot deeper than anybody realizes? Something a lot of people don't know about construct is that it carries a very long, complicated, and somewhat obscure history dating all the way back to 2004, which I'm sure makes it older than most people watching this video. The vibrant version that everyone knows today technically didn't even exist until 2012, and the earlier versions look strikingly different. They were much less colorful. In fact, the original map actually didn't have any color at all because it was just meant to be a reference to the original Matrix movie. It's actually a bit funny to realize that what started out as a white purgatory with buttons to spawn Half-Life 2 props quickly evolved into one of the greatest and most iconic digital playgrounds ever. The moment people started realizing you could make the ragdolls in the map hump each other. Stay classy, GMod community. Moving on, though, the bleak, muted, and flat-out bizarre vibes that early versions of construct carry have fascinated people for a long time, and they're a big part of the level's mystique. Quite peculiarly, back in June I got the chance to interview Gary Newman, the creator of both GM construct and GMod as a whole, and he revealed to me that he actually doesn't even really remember making some of these early versions of the map, which is kind of odd. Anyways, fast forward to the present day. Construct hasn't changed or seen an update in over 10 years, and it would seem that the version that everyone's come to know and love since 2012 is here to stay. However, on July 21st, 2021, a mysterious add-on abruptly appeared on the Gary's Mod workshop simply labeled a GM construct 13 beta, and it immediately started catching people's eyes for a number of reasons. It was posted by two users named Zalowlow and Zarzo, and being 172 megabytes, the add-on was suspiciously large given that it claimed to only contain a single level.  Well, here's what the author had to say in the description of the upload. This is the current GM construct with almost all the removed features ported back from the GMod 13 beta period. In 2012, I was following GM construct 13 progress, testing, saving links, and at that time I even ended up getting and publishing an unmodified version of the map to preserve history. Unfortunately, I never liked that some content was removed, and now, nine years later, I finally decided to get my hands dirty and do something about it. Obviously, I needed a little artistic freedom to blend all the pieces together naturally, since we have many unfinished or unrefined parts mixed with map resizes, but I didn't leave important features out. Each version got carefully looked at, and even the doubtful things are back. I also took the liberty of integrating some improvements. This description seems to call back to a somewhat obscure piece of authentic GMod history. The fact that the modern version of construct we know today was actually built using suggestions from the now defunct face punch forums. Basically, the developers of GMod wanted to know what players wanted to see in a new version of construct, and took community feedback via a form thread to try out various different ideas and concepts. Having a look at the screenshots on the construct 13 beta page, the uploaders claim checks out, and they've even included a few extra links showing proof that they really were members of the GMod community back in the day. So based on that, it certainly looks like this map is nothing more than an edit of construct that restores a bunch of ideas that were once considered for the level during a brief phase of experimentation, but ultimately scrapped. However, the comments and discussion pages on construct 13 beta clearly indicate this house is something much more ominous than a near beta content recreation, and that description given really doesn't explain this huge file size. For reference, the original GM construct is only 35 megabytes. So let's have a look for ourselves, why don't we? Downloading the add-on off the workshop and booting up GMod, nothing seems too fishy at a glance. The level appears on the map menu right next to the real construct, even sporting a custom icon with the little beta stamp on it. Clicking on the level and loading into the game, we can immediately see all the classic construct landmarks like the spawn buildings, the warehouse, and the pond side tower. The skyline looks a little different though, with more visible cliffs and forests, and there's also a new sign on the side of the warehouse reading construct ink. These are our first sign of those restored features from the old face punch thread that the add-on description promised. And if we enter pretty much any of these familiar buildings around us, we'll immediately start coming across even more interesting cut content. For example, heading down to the white colorable room, it now has doors so you can fully engulf yourself in the void without any visual interruptions, just pure white. This is kind of cool, but it does have one critical problem, being that these doors close behind you automatically. This makes it startlingly easy to lose track of direction and get stuck inside if you don't put a prop down by the door or something. So I can definitely see why this feature was removed. The dark room is already pretty spooky, even with well-lit exit doors, so getting lost in here probably would have terrified me as a kid. Heading even further down, the mirror room now leads to a bunker, which in turn connects to a sprawling series of tunnels that lead back to the dark room, the spawn room, and even a new area funneling into the lake. Looking at the original form thread, this was apparently meant for building submarines, which is a novel idea, but let's be real here, ain't nobody built in submarines in this game, man.   The tunnels also connect to that lakeside building, which instead of being completely hollow and dark like we've come to expect, now has much more welcoming lighting and winding stairs that lead all the way to the rooftop. This is actually pleasant. The other apartment building has a ladder leading up to its rooftop as well, making the whole level a lot more accessible by foot, which is sad to see because I always kind of felt like the construct we got left players extremely reliant on noclip to get around. From what I can tell, these ideas and areas I've shown genuinely are all real documented areas that were once prototyped and planned for GM constructs, but ultimately scrapped for the sake of simplicity. Now that would all be fine and good if all the map really was, was what it seems to be on its surface. Pretty cool piece of gaming history that does a good job of restoring content most people would have never seen. But come on, you've seen the title and length of this video, you know there's something else at play here. GM construct 13 beta is weird, and I don't just mean weird because it's different from the main construct. No, I mean, it's weird, weird. If you run around this place long enough, it quickly becomes apparent that something's off about it beyond the usual strange vibes we've come to expect from GM construct. For starters, these maintenance tunnels are creepy. They've got loads of graffiti, they're grimy looking and some of the lights are out. The implication that construct needs maintenance also begs more questions about what this place is actually supposed to be. Who maintains construct? Who built this place? And for what reason? On top of all that, when I first booted up this map, these tunnels felt weirdly easy to get lost in. And it turns out this wasn't just in my head. After exploring for a while, it became increasingly clear to me that these tunnels play tricks on you. Sometimes you'll wind up on the opposite side of the map from where you should be because sometimes the layout just kind of changes.  This happens in a couple of other places in the map too. One that comes to mind is this hallway behind the spawn area. Sometimes when you turn through, you'll somehow wind up back in the same room you just came from. It's all very weird and kind of makes you feel like you're going crazy. The first sign of something outright ominous, however, was here in front of the infamous dark room. That... Oh! Oh! Oh! Oh man.  That was a real clip of me reacting to this level blindly on stream. The light in front of the dark room flickered ominously, which actually kind of startled me. And then going over to the hallway near the mirror and colorable room, my flashlight stopped working too. By this point it was clear the level had a lot of tricks up its sleeve, but little did I know this was only scratching the surface. Exploring the map a little while longer, I occasionally started seeing trash fires around the place. Just chairs and random pieces of garbage sitting around, set ablazes if someone was camping here and trying to keep warm. Now in the game Portal, there's a part where the player character begins breaking out of their intended areas and finding traces of a schizophrenic employee who survived a neurotoxin gassing, which helps the player uncover a further conspiracy explored in the game's later plotline. I bring this up because these little areas definitely reminded me of those Ratman Dents. So if this is anything like Portal, does that mean there's someone here? Where would they be hiding? Maybe in that ever terrifying ominous dark room that just flickered a few seconds ago? Let's have a look. For some Godforsaken reason, the dark room will sometimes have barnacles from Half-Life 2 lining their ceilings, serving as a trap for any poor bastard who stumbles in without paying attention to their surroundings. This place also doesn't take kindly to decorations. If you try spawning lights or props in or outside the dark room, this happens.   If you hang out around here long enough, eventually a chair will appear, illuminated by a single spotlight, emanating some ominous ambience. But I walked up to the chair and nothing happened, and I couldn't sit down in it either. So I decided to head out. Don't worry though, we'll be back here later. I headed back up to the surface again, and by this point I was no longer alone on the map, as there was no this guy standing by spawn, silently staring ahead expressionlessly and greenly. I know there are some really, really young zoomers in my audience, so I'm sorry to break it to you guys that this isn't a Breaking Bad reference. This is Info Player Start, an entity that's supposed to look like Gordon Freeman, and is used in the game's map editing software, Hammer, to mark spawn points. The thing is, this model is only supposed to appear as a marker in that map software, not in the game itself. So needless to say, it's extremely odd for it to appear in your game in this way, and it's even more odd that if you get too close to him, he'll teleport away. After wandering around for a while, I also ran into another bizarre Gordon Freeman anomaly. This time taking the appearance of the weird unfinished third-person model from Half-Life 2, which is pretty much a weird untextured version of his model from the original Half-Life. This guy seems to just kind of spawn at random parts of the map and stare at you from a distance. Just like the Info Player Start before him, you can't kill him or get rid of him or really do anything to him. A lot of players apparently call him Semper, as a reference to a creepypasta that revolves around this same Gordon placeholder model. I'm not sure if there's any actual intentional connection between this map and the creepypasta, but either way, this guy definitely feels invasive and imposing. In fact, if around this point, you get spooked and decide to leave to another map, this guy can actually apparently follow you there.  He just watches from a distance and you actually can't get rid of him without outright uninstalling the add-on. So if you're planning to check this map out for yourself, you'd better make sure you remember to wipe your downloads once you're done or else this guy might pay you a visit when you're least expecting it. Anyways, after playing construct 13 beta for a while, I could have sworn I had started seeing figures out of the corner of my eye, disappearing around corners. And it turned out I was right. Once you've explored a bit, there's a number of places that these dark shadow people will pop up around the map. And if you manage to catch up to one of them with no clip or by bunnyhopping, this will happen. Spooky, huh? For those who don't know, those two noises you heard are both sounds from Half-Life 2. The first one is Squill 1.Wave. This sound was originally supposed to appear on a creepy clock pendulum mechanism in the Half-Life 2 beta, but after being cut, somehow mysteriously ended up being triggerable here in the Coast Chapter if you blow up this guard tower. It's a really weird noise and nobody seems to have any idea why it's there. The other is Playground Underscore Memory.Wave, which plays at the start of the game in the Playground section and is supposed to drive home the sad lack of children in City 17 due to the combine suppression field. Needless to say, they're both pretty unsettling sounds, so combining them with a banishment to the void makes for a pretty off-putting experience the first time around. Now, just about everything we've covered in this map so far has been creepy, but this next thing I'm about to talk about crosses the threshold into being genuinely bewildering. First though, a brief history lesson. Have you ever heard of minges or mingebags? It's a term that was used in the early days of Gmod's history to describe players who would join servers just to troll or cause problems. This is because the default name you'd be given in Gmod in the time before Source Engine games synced to your Steam name used to be mingebag. So anyone who joined a server without bothering to give themselves a proper name was assumed to have been up to no good. The term came to be associated with a T-posing Dr. Kleiner with a Fizz gun in his crotch, which I think was also what your character would look like by default if you didn't set your player model in older versions of the game. The urban dictionary definitions for the term show just how dated it is. The footage I'm showing on screen right now is from War of the Servers, an early feature length Gmod machinima movie made all the way back in 2007. This film took the concept of mingebag trolls invading servers and made a parody of War of the Worlds out of it. It pretty much solidified the term mingebag in the halls of Gmod history, and it's a truly classic piece of Gmod media. Its creators even pressed this thing to DVD with its own custom box set, which is really cool and is partly what inspired this video's thumbnail. Anyway, while mingebags were long considered a staple of the game's multiplayer, if you were someone who stuck to single-player, you were pretty unlikely to have ever heard of or been visited by one. But what if you were? Well, if you stick around GM construct 13 beta long enough, mingebags will start showing up. Gravity gun crotch and all appearing right inside your single-player game session.  But they're also so intelligent and human-like that it was actually a bit off-putting the first time I ran into them.  They're a spitting image of the old-school GMod minges. So how does this work? Are these a hyper-advanced AI or something? No, actually. It turns out these really are other real players who have been connected directly to your single-player game. It's apparently made possible through a proprietary central server called MingeNet, which the map occasionally tries to connect you to if it detects that you have an internet connection. MingeNet reads your position, rotation, whether you're firing your weapon, whether you've used chat recently and whether you've been attacking another minge, and then redistributes all this data back to the central server to sync it across everyone playing the map at one time. Also, sometimes one of these guys will wind up in the skybox, which is really funny-looking. If you want proof these are real players, take note of the FizzGun. When minges appear in a game, your FizzGun is altered to also function as a drawing tool, which can spray missing texture cubes on the wall.  You can't talk to them in in-game chat though. If anyone tries, the chat will get flooded with the word cough, which is a reference to an old cough virus scare that took control of GMod back in 2014. Anyway, the fact that construct 13 beta invented a way to force online players into your single player match seriously impresses me and is something that would have scared me shitless as a kid. When this map first came out and before people cracked open the programming to figure out how they worked, there was a lot of contention in the community as to whether these minges were actually other players or not, with a ton of experiments being conducted involving them and their behavior. GMod's Reddit and discussion forums were also inundated with posts of confused and startled people complaining about these scary minge bags causing ruckus in their games, to the point that some posters started making PSAs about it. It's all pretty funny. Anyways, I put this apartment I noticed a lambda on the wall. This is another asset from Half-Life 2 and in that game it denotes a secret stash of items. So what's it doing here? Well, it turns out that if you beat this corner in with a crowbar, a hole will be revealed that you can then crawl and drop down through into a vent.  The thing that's special about this cubby is that it has a wall that displays cryptic graffiti, referred to as the oracle. The oracle can display a lot of different images. Some of them seem to provide lore, some of them just depict things from the map but others are actually coded hints that will be key in helping us unravel the mystery behind this map. All of these hints can be found in the add-ons files for easy viewing, stored in the same folder as this image of Floppa for some reason. Let's start with this one. It shows a man peering into some kind of portal next to the dark room, accompanied by what looks like a traffic cone with a light on it or something.  Well, it turns out that that traffic cone is an item called the curse detector that can be used to reveal hidden secrets in the map. The only way to obtain it is to wait for an RNG event that causes a white woman to come running out of the dark room gunning it for the beach side. If you let her get there, she'll die but if you block her, this will happen. Thank God someone had the courage to do that.  Anyway, if we take this curse detector to the rear entrance of the dark room as was shown in that hint, the laws of reality will break and a dimensional portal will open to a brand new location. Heading through, we find ourselves in a weird facility with some sparse living arrangements, a ton of props scattered around and a laboratory. Going up to the second floor, we'll find an office area giving us a name for this place, the ARC or the Anomaly Research Center. Digging through our surroundings, we can find a pile of PHX labs with sketches and notes on them, presumably scribbled down by members of the ARC. Pressing E on these will open separate links to various creepy GMOD YouTube videos and there's a lot of them. At first, I assumed these channels and videos would unravel a greater mystery but as I went on, they started feeling less and less coherent and eventually started to feel like flat out gags. It actually took me aback when certain plates even started pulling up uploads from GMOD ARGs I've covered elsewhere on my channel. There's links to videos from Gunslinger Pro 2009, Badwater Videos 2009, Survivor of all and even Gordon Pootman 297, which was briefly a bit of an inside joke on my channel. I guess whoever put these here must have been a viewer of mine, which is sweet. There's also a few other spooky GMOD anomalies you can spot images of around the base. We can even see a reference to the ever popular Interloper ARG that I never got around to covering. However, none of the Interloper related commands that my stream chat was spamming me to try seemed to do anything and the notes next to these images seem to indicate that none of them are actually directly tied to what's going on in construct 13 beta at all. They're just kind of Easter eggs, I guess. But based on their name and all the references to other popular spooky GMOD content, it definitely seems that the ARC is meant to basically be a GMOD equivalent of the Secure Contain Protect Foundation, which if you somehow haven't heard of is another popular ARG revolving around a secret organization that captures and studies paranormal phenomena. It's a pretty nifty idea. Other than that, there's a few other things to check out around this facility as well. For example, these two slabs one is of a man staring at the mirror and the other is some kind of ritual involving five babies in a skull. If we go out and try replicating the ritual seen in the second image, we'll discover that it has the effect of purging any minge bags in your game reliably so that you can get some peace and quiet, which is kind of nice because once they're mystique whereas off, they can get a little annoying. The other image seems to be hinting at something being off about the mirror room. Once again, this will make more sense later. There's also two spots marked on the base's floor. One is accompanied by the numbers 0019 and will set any prop that comes into contact The other is a yellow square that gives props a low gravity effect. The last notable thing I could find here though was this combine helicopter bomb and containment that if you touch explodes killing you and deleting the entire base. So with the cryptic clues from the Oracle in the vent and the information we've managed to learn here in the ARC base let's start trying to solve this mystery, why don't we? Starting out, let's head to the dark room and have a look at that weird chair from earlier again.  Once it explodes, the room will fill with stalker NPCs from Half-Life 2 that will all slowly burn to death. All except one. Now, do you remember earlier how I mentioned that those trash fires around the map were reminiscent of Ratman from Portal? Well, this last stalker's given name is Ratman. And at first I didn't pick up on this but he's actually not a reference to Portal. He's actually directly taken from an old GMOD map called GMOD 13 Hotels which I previously wound up talking about back in my GMOD's biggest secrets video. Basically in that map, there was a secret area you could discover that would tell you the story of an ancient Ratman who escaped from prison in 1994 and had been living underneath the place ever since. He was shown to leave weird trash fires around and if you went deep enough, you could eventually come across him in his lair. Apparently, this weird, extremely obscure character from a GMOD map from 10 years ago has returned for a cameo appearance here in Construct 13 Beta. And if we follow Ratman across the map into that submarine building room from the start of the video, we'll find he's now decorated it with the same assortment of furniture and even his signature radio from GM13 Hotels. This is Ratman's new lair and I gotta say, it's quite the upgrade from the old one. There's functioning electricity and he's even got a pool. Ratman's lair is pretty important to progressing from here on out. Most important is his radio. We can tell it's got some serious importance because if you put it up against the Oracle in the vent, it freaks the hell out. Oh, and it also plays the radio music from Portal if you press E on it. So I guess the allusion to the Ratman in Aperture is at least somewhat intentional. Anyway, now that we've got the radio, there's a couple of weird scorch marks that have appeared around the map. As is shown in one of the Oracle's hints, putting Ratman's radio up to these yields some interesting results. This one in the hallway plays yet another song from the Portal series. This time Potato Slamant from the Portal 2 soundtrack. This second scorch mark right inside Ratman's lair is more interesting though because it plays the infamous creepy radio song from Half-Life 2, interspersed with a weird string of numbers. If you've watched any of my other spooky GMod videos, some of you guys might be getting deja vu right now because the GMod Air G classic GM videos, which I covered back in 2022, had an upload called Half-Life 2 Creepy Nova Prospect Easter Egg where the protagonist of that series also puts a radio in a weird spot and here's that same exact song and same exact number sequence. So what do we do with it? Well, in that series, the player plugs them into the console and gets plunged into the dark room and construct. So why don't we try that? If we put these numbers in the console like so, we'll instantly get teleported to the dark room alongside three fast zombies, as well as an entity known only as Sad Gregory. Up until this point, there's actually been a small chance that the player might briefly spot Sad Gregory in the corner of the dark room any time they enter.  Also, this isn't required for progression, but there's another Oracle hint that tells us to take the radio up to the top of this building by the pond. Once you do that, this will happen. First time I did this on stream, I had no idea what the hell was going on, but apparently this was a visit from some kind of entity called the Minj God, which I guess is the smiley face guy in the sky in that Oracle hint. I don't know why he's decided to strike us with some kind of fire tornado, but now that he has, our radio's now gained a big old new button on top of it, which gives us full control over when Minjbags appear in our game without having to do a weird, annoying, satanic ritual. Pressing the button on the radio if there's not any Minjas on the map will play the sound of a phone dialing. And once this orange meter fills up, it'll summon them at will. Pressing the button if there's Minjas already on the map turns them all into wooden crates. It's useful if you wanna spend time exploring or trying to solve puzzles on this map without getting grieved into oblivion by chaotic hell monsters. Also, going forward, it can get a bit annoying to haul both the curse detector and the radio around separately, so I'd recommend either putting them both in a bucket together or just connecting them with the rope tool to save yourself the hassle. Anyways, back to the puzzle. Do you remember that weird gas mask image from the ARC base? I told you it'd be important later. It turns out this image is telling us to closely investigate the mirror. So in true Mario 64 fashion, why don't we have a look? Welcome to the mirror world. At first things don't seem so different, but once we make it to the surface, we're in for a bit of a mind fuck. This is a really trippy thing to explore. It's kind of crazy how simply flipping something horizontally made me feel completely disoriented and lost in an iconic level from a video game I've spent an ungodly amount of time in. Apparently, this is done by flipping the player's perspective and their controls, which is a technique that was also used in LiDAR. Another really interesting GMOD horror project that, ah shit, I'm gonna have to do a video on that one as well at some point, aren't I? Anywho, we're not just in the mirror room to visit. We're here on a mission. In the mirror world, there are various spots on the floor marked by Xs. They're all around the map in various locations, from the balconies to the secret room and the bunker, even down to Ratman's lair. Taking this knowledge, let's go have a look at some of those locations in the regular world. Heading back through the mirror, we can now see that in place of these Xs are various different props and items that seem a little bit out of place. Notably a trash can in the secret room, various globes around the map and some of Ratman's furniture. When we get near them, the curse detector will beep really fast and flash green. And if we whack these items with the crowbar, they'll start shape-shifting. Most of them turn into baby dolls, but one of them turns into a skull and the doll from the secret room. This is where we'll again have to consult the oracle. This mural shows Ratman's table. With four babies, the skull and the doll all suspended in the air above it. So we bring these items over and sure enough, they lock in place. Once the ritual is complete, it's time for a boss fight. This is not Grigori. And he's apparently a completely different entity than Sad Grigori from earlier. You can tell because the other Grigori was just sad while this guy is angry.  And as long as you don't let him catch you off guard, he's pretty easy to take care of. When he dies, he drops a citizen ration model that you can then put on your curse detector. This will upgrade it so that it automatically heals you when you're nearby. If you do the ritual a second time, this time it'll spawn waves and waves of man hacks to distract you and make things a little trickier. Take the package to the curse detector again and it'll now heal you slightly faster. You can do this ritual one last time before the part stops spawning. And on this final instance, Grigori will have both man hacks and a new bombing attack. The last upgrade to the curse detector makes you heal even faster and also upgrades your suit energy. It's actually kind of useful for protecting yourself against minge bags. Now, this might seem like a pretty climactic place to end things, but there's actually a couple of other loose ends that I got to cover before we wrap this up. If we head back into the mirror dimension, we can find text in the bunker room reading, yes, prohibited materials ahead, do not open. And ancient evil inside, do not enter. Heading back to this area in the real world, it turns out that we can break this wall open to reveal a giant dark cavernous space that's completely empty. It's like a second dark room. And I don't think it was ever actually in any of those real construct prototypes. Speaking of the dark room, let's have a look at this hint from the Oracle. It shows the secret room doll in a chair with a grenade underneath it. The grenade is presumably a hint telling us to blow up the chair to summon Ratman, like we did earlier, but putting the doll from the secret room in the chair is something we have yet to try. So here it goes. Welcome to the big dark room. In my opinion, this is the freakiest area in the entire map. You know how placing lights in the regular dark room wouldn't work because they'd just fizzle out? Well, in this place, pretty much nothing works. Once you're down here, you're trapped. Your first impulse might be to try and no clip away, but you just flat out can't no clip. The button doesn't work. My second impulse was to try lighting up the map using a console command called Matt Fulbright. That doesn't work either. If you have add-ons that add drones or night vision or campfires, even those will get destroyed down here, as shown in this Oracle hint. Help, you can't even kill bind to escape this place. On a first encounter, it's actually kind of terrifying. This deep dark room cannot be contained or subverted by any human means. Thankfully, the game does eventually throw you a bone as the chair and doll will both eventually reappear near you. Blowing up the chair again, you'll hear a female voice say, We thought you were here to help. Before getting teleported to various places around the map as Semper from earlier stares you down.  This guy seems to be a really important part of the mystery given how much he appears and the way his reach extends to other maps. There's not too much left to talk about, but there's still a few other small things around the map I couldn't wrap my head around. Like this graffiti in the Mirror World that cryptically tells us that the radio is receiving from the unknown. This little-ass cubby near the Oracle entrance that you can break open and seems like a perfect slot to put some kind of small item, but doesn't actually seem to do anything.  I got no idea what's going on with him, but he spawns randomly and can sometimes lag the hell out of your game. So what's there to learn from all this? Well, if I had to take a guess as to what the root of all these anomalies are and what the core mystery of construct 13 beta is, I'd say it seems that the insane, demonic darkroom dimension seems to hold some kind of dark essence that's spreading elsewhere throughout the map. What exactly this dark essence is, what it wants, how far it will go and what we can do to stop it remains to be seen. One of the videos you can find linked on a panel in the ARC base shows a combine elite in what I think is the darkroom. And according to this page from the wiki, it's apparently got a message in Morse code insinuating that the darkroom is an infection of some kind. Regardless, whatever it is that's down there, it's making changes to the map seemingly without the creator knowing. And maybe, just maybe, that's the reason why Gary doesn't remember certain versions of GM construct. Now, this is the unfortunate part of the video or I have to break it to anyone who hasn't picked up on it yet, that this isn't actually a video about proving the GM construct is haunted. It's a prank, it's a gag, I fooled you. Construct 13 beta is actually just a really well-made alternate reality game project made by some GMod veterans using a ton of complicated Lua programming. And you can see the full list of contributors if you shine your flashlight on the back of this board in the lakeside building, which has also got this little button that starts an NPC riot, which is cool. In the midst of me making this video, the creators actually pushed a small holiday update that added some pretty interesting seasonal content. Now, if you boot up the map during Christmas time, you'll get a snowy version of construct with the pond frozen over.  It doesn't seem to add any new content related to the ARG itself, but it's still a cool show of life. And it's also genuinely pretty cool how much this texture swap completely changes the vibe of the map. The tunnels and ratman's lair feel completely different. And now the Minjbags feel less like distant, ominous disruptors, and more like little kids frolicking in the snow. Happy holidays, people. Now, there's absolutely no way I got everything in this map and I can only imagine that this mystery is definitely going to unravel further in future updates. In fact, based on the map's lewafile, it seems like what's been implemented in the map so far only makes up one out of four tiers. Tears presumably being phases of the ARG. So it seems like the devs are in it for the long haul year. This ARG isn't even limited to this one level either. There's apparently a couple of other maps in the workshop that have also been linked to construct 13 beta. The only one I could figure out was this one though. It's called GM building construct. And it's got a secret ARC base hidden underneath it. The whole lore with this place kind of reminds me of those old construct and flat grass conspiracy maps from back in the day, if anyone remembers those. It's neat. Anyways, if you're interested in keeping up, I'd recommend checking out the official Wiki and exploring the map yourself. Who knows, maybe I'll end up making another video about this thing later on down the line. The creator said in the comments under my stream that he's gotten busy with real life lately, which is why it's a bit buggy, but I'm still beyond impressed with this thing and I'm very excited to see where it goes. It's definitely a bit cheesy at times, but I still had a ton of fun and a couple pretty decent spooks looking into this project. So kudos to everyone who made this map possible and here's to one day solving the creepy mystery of construct 13 beta. Thanks for watching. Subscribe for more.  There's a freak named Richter over time. But to me, he's Richter blower time. Richter, hope you're having a state plan. He's Richter, you was a gay man. Today, our guest is Richter over time. But he's a freak named Richter blower time. And Richter, hope you're having a state plan. Because Richter, you was a gay man. Today, our guest is Richter over time. But he's a freak named Richter blower time. And Richter, hope you're having a state plan. Because Richter, you was a gay man.


We are now ready to discuss rotational spectroscopy and as we have said earlier rotational spectroscopy is performed in the microwave regime. So, you want to use microwave radiations if you want to study the rotation of molecules. But before I begin maybe it is time when I told you once again something about textbooks. So, most of the discussion that we have performed on quantum chemistry so far are from Atkins physical chemistry. There are portions that we have taken from McQuarrie and Simon forgive me if this spelling is wrong I keep forgetting whether this A is there between M and C or not and also whether there are 2 Rs or 1 because there is something some place called McQuarrie University their spelling and this McQuarrie author spelling are not the same. Simon is easier you can also study from Levine's book and another book that is very nice for quantum chemistry is Engel and Reed at this level. If you want to learn quantum chemistry in a little further detail then you should study the elementary quantum chemistry book by Pilar and there is another book by Just McQuarrie on quantum chemistry which is also excellent. And all these discussions that we are now doing on rotational vibrational spectroscopy you find them in all these books Atkins, McQuarrie and Simon, Levine, Engel and Reed maybe not Pilar and also you could study spectroscopy from the book by Banwell and McCash. This is the introductory book on spectroscopy that everybody studies at the beginning. And then if you are interested in spectroscopy there are many more texts available but we can talk about that later. That being said let us talk about rotation of a simple diatomic molecule HCl. Note we are not talking about H2, why we will see why. So, what we need really is a diatomic molecule with permanent dipole moment and this is a figure that is taken from Banwell and McCash's book to be very honest I do not like this too much because it is always better to do the more rigorous treatment unfortunately in this course there is no scope for it. So, this should be good enough. So, you can understand why it is that rotation couples with radiation by thinking like this. Think of this HCl molecule which has a permanent dipole moment rotating. What happens? The direction of dipole keeps changing constantly and if you plot the vertical component of dipole then what happens? Here it is negative, here it is 0, here it is positive and maximum, then again it is 0, negative and maximum 0 and so on and so forth it goes on like a negative cosine wave or something like that. What is light? Light is an electromagnetic radiation. So, it has electric field and magnetic field with the same frequency as a frequency of light. So, now you can think that this oscillating electric field produced by the rotating molecule can have constructive destructive interference with the oscillating electric field of light and that is the origin of the emission of spectroscopy interaction of radiation with matter. So, this is a very rudimentary hand waving kind of understanding that we may develop at the moment. The important point that come out from here is that it is this molecule better have a permanent dipole moment in order to be microwave active. This rotation is not going to produce any oscillating electric field unless the dipole moment is there in the first place and that is why we did not say hydrogen. H2 is a non-polar molecule. So, no matter how much H2 might rotate it is not going to interact with microwave. Does that mean that we cannot study rotational levels of H2? No, it does not mean that we can find it using something called rotational Raman spectroscopy. Unfortunately, in this course we are not going to get into Raman spectroscopy. Now, so that is the first condition it requires a permanent dipole moment and that immediately opens up several applications at least one of which is perhaps very well known to each other happens in our house out. So, this is the essential condition and HCl is microwave active. Water is also microwave active because water can also be approximated as a dipole right it is a polar molecule. So, even rotation of water can give you microwave activity and that is an important point remember in our discussion of application that is going to come up soon. To build a quantum mechanical description what we use commonly is a rigid rotor model. The assumption here is that during rotation the bond length does not change. Once again it is an application of Born-Oppenheimer approximation. So, let us say this is the molecule we are talking about HCl. This is the bond length separation between the nuclei and we are considering the molecule to be stationary. I mean we are considering the bond length to be same that means the molecule is not vibrating or anything during rotation. So, now see this fine print that you see here are the C here is the center of mass and of course, Cl is much bulkier atom than hydrogen. So, the center of mass will be displaced towards Cl. R0 is the bond length this R1 R2 are there and this is a little problematic model to use to start with because there are two bodies. If you try to write the equation you will have too many terms. So, common approach of something like this again coming from classical mechanics is that you reduce this two body problem to a bond body problem. This is what the one body problem looks like. So, the reduced mass I hope you know what reduced mass is we have discussed it earlier 1 by mu equal to 1 by H 1 by M H plus 1 by M Cl where M H and M Cl are the masses of hydrogen atom and chlorine atom respectively. So, this problem is reduced with a little bit of manipulation which I believe you have studied in rotational dynamics in class 11 physics. This problem is reduced to a single mass a single atom a single particle with mass equal to reduce mass mu rotating around a note this now massless charge less center separation between the center and this mass is R0 the bond length. Now, couple of comments here in HCl what is mu going to be like is it going to be like the mass of hydrogen or is it going to be like the mass of chlorine the answer is is going to be like the mass of the hydrogen. So, it is almost like hydrogen is going around chlorine and chlorine is stationary it is just that since we have used reduced mass we do not need to consider the mass of chlorine anymore. So, the center can be considered to be massless completely. Have we encountered this situation earlier actually we have is it not? When we set up Schrodinger equation for hydrogen we had written the Hamiltonian theta phi this was actually the inherent assumption. So, what we will do now is that we will try to see what the solutions are. In fact, since the Schrodinger equation is similar to that of hydrogen atom angular part the wave functions are also the same as in hydrogen atom spherical harmonics. Since we know that the wave functions are spherical harmonics same as hydrogen atom we can try to work with them what do we know about the spherical harmonics of hydrogen atom. We know that the spherical harmonics we have written them as y which are functions of theta and phi they are eigen functions of the l square operator with eigen value of l into l plus 1 multiplied by h by 2 pi h cross not really h square divided by 4 pi square. Here the difference with hydrogen atom is that this R is constant. So, we can try to find out what is the rotation energy here how remember the relationship between kinetic energy and angular momentum it is l square by 2i is not it. So, if I take this l square operator and divide by 2i what is i i equal to mu R0 square then what do I get I get h square by 4 pi square multiplied by 2i multiplied by l into l plus 1. We will make only one change here we will not write l when you talk about rigid rotor it is conventional to write j as the quantum number instead of l what is j j is the rotational quantum number very very similar or well for all practical purposes same as the azimuthal quantum number in hydrogen atom. So, let us write it a little better this turns out to be h square divided by 8 pi square i into j into j plus 1 I forgot to write this y theta phi here multiplied by y theta phi. What does this mean we said earlier that this here is the kinetic energy operator. So, I can write it as maybe t theta phi operating on y of theta and phi. So, this is what we get an eigenvalue equation this here is the eigenvalue. So, this is kinetic energy it is as simple as that is there a potential energy for rigid rotor no because we have defined it as a one body problem as a mass going around a massless charge less center. So, in that case if the center does not have any mass or charge then there is no question of potential energy that can arise the energy of a rigid rotor is purely kinetic energy. So, it is now so this is what the expression is E j equal to h square by 8 pi square i j into j plus 1 in joule. Now, generally it is conventional to not work in joules when we talk about microwave spectroscopy we like to work in wave numbers. So, how do I write the energy in wave numbers like this this is the energy h by 8 pi square i c how did we get it how did we get this in the first place how do we get energy in centimeter inverse well this thing has to be divided by h c. So, just bring in an h c here what happens this h and this h goes and you have a c left in the denominator that is what gives us the expression actually it is conventional to write epsilon j here you have written E E j equal to h by 8 pi square i c multiplied by j into j plus 1 centimeter inverse where j is 0 1 2 exactly like your subsidiary quantum number of hydrogen atom. So, in short it is written E j equal to b into j into j plus 1 centimeter inverse where b h by 8 pi square i c this here is the rotational constant in centimeter inverse. There is a selection rule I told you earlier that not all transitions take place. So, selection rule without going into the derivation here is delta j equal to plus minus 1. So, what would be delta E for delta j equal to plus 1 you just substitute the values and work out b what is the energy for the jth level b j j plus 1 to know the energy of the j plus 1th level I just have to write j plus 1 in place of j. So, it becomes b into j plus 1 into j plus 2 subtract this from here you get 2 b into j plus 1. So, what does it mean? It means that it means 2 things first of all the energy levels are separated by 2 b into j plus 1 we are going to show you the diagram. Secondly, your rotational spectral lines will also occur at 2 b into j plus 1 of course we get line spectra. So, what do the spectral look like? First let us draw this energy level ladder that we talked about here it is it ok b j j plus 1 right. So, if it is b into j into j plus 1 when j equal to 0 it is 0 j equal to 1 b into j into j plus 1 is 2 b when b equal to 2 then what happens j is 2 j plus 1 is 3 right 2 into 3 6 b so on and so forth. So, as you see the energy gaps keep on increasing as you go higher up the ladder does that ring a bell does that remind you of particle in a box ok. Now, what about the spectrum? Where will the lines be? The first line will be for transition between 0 to 1 that will be at 2 b. Second line will be for transition between 1 and 2 that is 6 b minus 2 b 4 b. Third line might be between 12 b for transition from 6 b to 12 b n equal to j equal to 2 to j equal to 3 level that is 6 b and so on and so forth. So, this is what the spectra look like you get an equi-spaced spectra where spacing is 2 b in each case spacing between 2 successive lines is 2 b of what use is that? Well since they are equally spaced and from the spacing you can find out what the b is you can actually determine the bond length can you? They do go through a maximum why they go through a maximum will come to that right. But even before that let me at least mention that is not it clear that from the spacing of the spectral lines we should be able to find out what the if you know the reduced mass which there are easier ways of finding you can find out what the bond length is we are going to come back to that. Before that let us address this question why? Why is it that the spectrum goes through a maximum? This is why see each rotational level actually is 2 j plus 1 fold degenerate remember these remember those l levels all of them where 2 l plus 1 fold degenerate and as we said we just substitute small l by capital J here. So, you get this angular momentum pointing in specific different orientations and how many such directions are allowed depends very much on which j you are working with. So, g j equal to 2 j plus 1 here we have given you an example of j equal to 2. So, degeneracy is there what happens to degeneracy then as you go higher of the level degeneracy increases and what is Boltzmann distribution? It is g j multiplied by e to the power minus epsilon j by k t. So, epsilon goes up with j. So, e to the power minus epsilon j epsilon here is just that e that we wrote earlier e to the power minus epsilon j by k t will go down with increase in j. So, that is a decreasing function degeneracy is basically a straight line with j. So, multiply a straight line this positive slope by a decreasing function what do you get? You get something that goes to a maximum. This is why rotational spectra goes to a maximum. Homework for you is find out an expression for j in which population is maximum. I will just discuss how to do it this is how you do it essentially you take d n j d j equal to 0. At maximum the first derivative will be equal to 0. So, take a derivative of this what is this 2 j plus 1 multiplied by e to the power minus here I will write j minus e j divided by k t this is equal to 0. So, what are the solutions? Is this right what I have written not really. So, this d d j of this is equal to 0. Now you can do this differentiation find out what you will get and what you will get always is you will get an expression with 2 terms. I will not tell you what the 2 terms are but you substitute you will get j equal to may be 10.23. So, what does that mean? It means that see here we are using calculus which inherently requires continuous variation we do not have continuous variation here we actually have discretization. So, that is why this point 23 or whatever it is it comes you have to neglect this point just work with the whole number that comes out. You can take the nearest integer that is going to be the value of j where the population is going to be maximum. Please do it yourself if you have any difficulty it is worked out in Atkins book as well as Manuel and Maccash's book. So, what is the information that we find I have played a spoilsport and we have already told you that when you look at this spectrum from the spacing you know what to be is that is going to give you bond length because I after all is mu R0 square if you know mu from here you find B is a very elegant easy method of finding bond length what kind of molecules only those molecules that are dipolar H2 cannot be done this way you need Raman spectroscopy. Now, in the last lecture we talked about what Planck had said about experiment. So, you cannot close it without showing you an actual spectrum this here is a spectrum of carbon monoxide rotational spectrum you can see more or less equi-space and here they are plotted transformation that is why it is negative going but you can understand that if you work out the spacing here between any two lines you can knowing the masses of carbon and oxygen should be able to work out the bond length. So, this is one of the applications but there are others. Second application is that commonplace thing that we are talking about microwave oven why is it that food gets hot if you place it in a microwave oven why is it that food gets hot when you place it inside a microwave oven because unless you are somebody who eats nails and stones for dinner most of the food that we eat is 70 percent water. So, when you place it in microwave oven microwave of the frequency that is broadly absorbed by water is incident on your food and it actually goes through other glass and all container. So, all this water inside your food starts rotating it gets energized but they cannot keep rotating always they have to stop when they come to stop that is because of dielectric friction and that is when this rotational energy they are acquired is given to the surroundings that is the food in the form of heat and since there is 70 percent water it is sort of like fire within that is why microwave is a very efficient way of heating up food or cooking it. Mind this you cannot fry anything in a microwave because to fry you need to go beyond 100 degree centigrade you need to get your oil heated oil is non-polar it is never going to heat up you can cook but you cannot fry in microwave. Astrophysics is another area where microwave spectroscopy has a lot of application look at microwave radiation and from there you can tell which molecule is there in that the environment of that particular star or even planet I think and it is used for things like fault analysis in analysis of materials. So, microwave spectroscopy is very useful not only for chemists or physicists but also for engineers and people working in many other fields.


Welcome to Microterrorz. Scary stories for kids, where it's always the spooky season, full of chills, thrills, and spine-tingling spooks. Microterrorz are family-friendly frights for those ages 8 and up. And while our stories are for younger years, we are still talking about things that go bump in the night, and some children may not be able to handle what others can. Parental consent is recommended. Now for tonight's Microterrorz. Flashlight Tag by Evan Bond A beam of light bounced through the darkness, threatening to illuminate Jacob. It scanned the trees all around him, bouncing from one to another as it desperately searched for him. Jacob knew he could not be caught by it, otherwise it would be all over. He crouched down low and pressed his body up against the tree trunk. Just then, the light hit the tree he hid behind, splitting the beam in half. He prayed the tree had completely concealed his body. As the light moved away from Jacob's hiding spot, he let out a sigh of relief. Before he could celebrate, though, the crunching of leaves and twigs echoed in his ears. They were moving closer and closer, and soon they would spot him. He had no choice but to run. Without wasting another second, Jacob took off running. He saw the beam of light zigzag all around him as the wielder searched for his location. It hit the ground near his feet and bounced off several trees to his right, but had yet to envelop him. Then, the unthinkable happened. A blinding light broke through the darkness in front of him, and the one behind him snapped to his location as well. Kacha, a high-pitched voice, said from behind the light. Those were some good moves, Jacob, a voice said from behind Jacob. Yeah, had you guys gone for a bit? Almost made it to home base. That was a sneaky move, Emily, he said to the girl in front of him. She pointed the flashlight down at the ground and gave him a smile. Thanks, she said, with a hint of blush on her face. And thus concludes our little game of manhunt, the voice from behind called out. I guess so, Ricky, Jacob said, turning to face's friend. Jacob and Ricky slapped each other a high-five and laughed. They'd been playing flashlight tag since they were in elementary school. In middle school it became manhunt, which sounded much cooler. Emily was the newest addition to the party. It overheard them Friday at school as they discussed their ritual of playing manhunt in the woods behind the school. Of course, Jacob had a crush on Emily, so he had quickly invited her to the party. Now looking at her in the woods, he was glad she had come along. Ricky gave Jacob a slight shove with his shoulder and motioned towards Emily with his head, as if to tell him now was the time to confess his feelings for her.  As he had worked up the courage to say something, they heard a terrible noise in the distance. What was that? Emily said, spinning around and pointing her flashlight in the direction of the noise. It sounded like a scream, Jacob said, looking over at Ricky. Ricky shook his head. No way, man, I'm not messing with whatever that is. Come on, we have to see what it was. What if someone's hurt? Jacob tried to keep the fear from coming out in his voice, hoping Emily would think he was brave. Deep down, he was scared. Yeah, alright, fine, whatever you say, Ricky said. The three of them started to walk in the direction of the unknown sound. Both Emily and Ricky kept their flashlights pointed ahead of them to light the path. Jacob walked between the two, keeping his eyes open for anything unexpected. As they made their way deeper into the woods, one of the flashlight beams reflected off something white behind a tree. From their angle, it was hard to tell what it was. Is that a person? Ricky said, stopping. Emily and Jacob were too transfixed on the mystery before them to notice Ricky had stopped walking. He stood there, shining his light at the lump behind the tree, shaking. As they approached, Emily pointed her flashlight down at the thing behind the tree and gasped. Jacob nearly tripped over his own feet in shock. It's a body! Jacob yelled. Next to him, Emily began to hyperventilate. Oh my god, that's Crystal! I have banned with her! Is she okay? It was a useless question to ask. They both knew the horrible truth. Crystal was no longer alive. Her glossy eyes stared straight up at the dark sky, seeing nothing. Still trying to act brave, Jacob turned towards Ricky and said, We need to call the...  There was something looming behind Ricky, like a tower. All sense of bravery had drained from Jacob now as his shaky hand rose and pointed at the thing behind him. Emily saw Jacob's hand in the corner of her eye and spun around, pointing her flashlight directly at Ricky. Standing behind him was a tall, thin creature with long limbs that seemed to be made from tree bark. It had to be over 20 feet tall at least. The creature stared down at Ricky with a burning look in its eyes. Jacob got the feeling they had just interrupted its meal and it was not happy. Ricky, look out! Emily cried. But it was too late. The monster snatched Ricky up and sprinted off into the darkness. His flashlight tumbled to the ground. Jacob and Emily heard his screams echo off into the distance until they were suddenly silent. Without saying a word, Emily and Jacob began to run. They no longer knew which way was out, but it didn't matter. They needed to be as far away from this spot as possible before that thing returned. Jacob could feel his lungs burning as they ran. He desperately needed to stop but knew that they couldn't. Finally, he couldn't take it anymore and he collapsed to the ground, catching his breath. Emily stopped and did the same. Do you think we lost it? She asked between gulps of air. Before Jacob could answer her, a tree only a few feet away began to sway. His eyes darted towards it in time to see the tree start to move towards them. It was at that moment he realized it wasn't a tree at all. It had found them. Jacob froze in terror, not sure what to do. A long, spindly arm reached out from the darkness and plucked him from the ground. He let out a blood-curdling scream as the monster pulled him higher into the air. Bark from the monster's hand dug into his skin, threatening to cut him. An image of Crystal's body danced in his mind and the haunting screams of Ricky reverberated in his ears. He was going to be the next victim of this tree thing. Suddenly, the darkness around him and the monster turned to a bright light. It seemed to hurt the creature for a moment, but a moment was all Jacob needed. The tree monster's hand loosened and Jacob was able to slip free, falling to the ground. He landed with a thud that nearly knocked the wind from his lungs. When he stood up, he saw Emily standing there like an action hero. Her flashlight was pointed directly at the monster. It recoiled in horror before sprinting off into the darkness. It doesn't like the light. She cried. When it took Ricky, I remembered something. It stood behind him and out of the light, and when it grabbed him, it sprinted away like it was afraid. Why not just crush us all right then? Because it was afraid of the light. Great job, Jacob said, but we could talk about this later. We need to run. With that, Jacob and Emily began to run. Jacob wasn't sure which way led out of the woods anymore, but he did not care. They kept moving until eventually they could see the tree line up ahead. Just beyond, they spotted the school. Before they could celebrate, they heard the thunderous booms of the creature behind them as a gave chase. Jacob's heart leapt into his throat as the pair picked up speed. Emily tried to scare the creature off by pointing her flashlight behind her as they ran, but it slipped from her hand and tumbled off into the darkness. Their only hope was to get to the well-lit parking lot of the school just a few more yards. As they reached the tree line, they could hear the monster directly behind them at 82nd, it would reach out and snatch one of them into the air, never to be seen again. Then they burst through the tree line and the remaining few yards to the parking lot before collapsing on top of each other. Emily rolled over and looked at the woods. The monster stood there at the tree line, staring at them. A look of anger crossed its bark covered face before it led out a shrill shriek and ran back into the woods. Jacob and Emily cheered through panting breaths before hugging each other tightly. Thank you for saving my life, Emily, Jacob said pulling back. She didn't respond with words, but instead with a quick peck on his lips. Both blushed as they looked at each other and smiled. Somewhere in the distant darkness of the woods, the creature let out one final wail before everything grew silent. Jacob didn't know what the creature was or why it was out there, but he did know one thing, he would never be going in those woods again. Microterrors.com is also where you can find us on your favorite social media and even send in your own scary story for us to tell. Plus, you'll learn more about our author, Scott Donnelly, who has other horrors for both young and old. I hope you'll join me again soon from Microterrors, scary stories for kids.


So what's one of the things I see killing young throwers all over why do they move so fast and hurry this up? And it kills training crates bad habits. We're gonna talk about this video. So check it out Everybody it's Eric Johnson from irritate throws nation and in today's video What we're gonna talk about is a simple thing that we've seen Literally all the way halfway around the world and all over the United States It's a simple thing that happens with young throwers and we're gonna tell you why and why you need to stop doing it So today we're gonna break that down and what is that?  I'm supposed to smash the crap out of it so I can throw really far What we're talking about specifically is as we go through drills What we tend to see is a lot of young throwers and they get really active and they're moving the upper body Into the throw too early one of the things we recommend that you do click the link below if you've never grabbed it We have a free rotational throws mini course and a glide mini course and we break down the throwing chain reaction system Explained to you more in depth about the six pillars So as we talk about this in these videos You're gonna have a better understanding of some of the reference points that we're making and positions in the ring So specifically as we get throwers and they kind of walk through and they're gonna hit They start doing this stuff and the thing that we see with throwers all over the world is we see them Coming through and they walk through and we're coaching them and they go like this and they practice finishing throw What you want to do is get in the habit of working how the lower body has got a sequence prior to the upper body So whether you come from the school of opening the arm or you want to kind of hold it back Either case the lower body has to create It has to be leading the throw to create the separation The hip has to be ahead of the shoulder so that you're going to be accelerating the implement And in the case of the discus you're going to be accelerating the radius So if you notice when I put on the band and I hit my block and I get that out You're going to see how I'm going to stretch that band over here if I'm throwing in the shot and I hit my block I'm going to do the same thing. I'm going to get the hip ahead and I'm going to be lifting the hip We have to get the lower body ahead of the upper body So one of the things we want you to do is as simple as as you walk through throws in our system We talk about pillar that's three four five We want to basically once we get here to our pillar five locking down power in the power position The start of the power position We're going to want to make sure we're not actively trying to do this And what so many young throwers do is they just want to hitting the throw That's the easy part getting yourself in the habit of allowing the lower body to go ahead first That's the real key if you'd like to learn more information about how to learn the throws and the complexity of the throws and simplify that So that you can get big results something that we've proven over and over again Again, grab that mini course below check out the link below on the throwing chain reaction system for coaches and throwers Because every pillar we're talking about we have nine drills specifically just to teach you the proper mechanics And what we do is show you how to put together positions train the unnatural movements train those positions And how to put those positions together what we call pillar connection We're working on the more sequential movement rhythm timing all those sorts of things as we dive into track season Or we're starting to go don't open the throw good reminder everybody who's attended our camps And so thanks so much. Hopefully you guys like this video Be sure to comment below hit that subscribe button and we will see you on the next video I'm going to be coming through what we call double bent legs And then we're going to be kind of lifting this way and you're going to notice that the hip is going to be coming in the throw