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The gameday experience: UI Block BY ALEX ROUX STAFF WRITER
Block is a staple at Illinois campus bars on football game days, and Homecoming contributed to a festive atmosphere Saturday morning at a pair of campus establishments. By late Saturday morning, beer gardens at KAM’S and Joe’s Brewery were teeming with students, alumni and even a few Wisconsin fans. Block begins in the morning for students, and dozens were still filing into Joe’s at 10:30 a.m. Saturday. Many were wearing customized Block shirts, with their fraternity or sorority’s Greek letters worked into the design of their shirts. If you walked to Block, you heard Joe’s before you saw it. Its beer garden along Fifth Street was blasting everything from Drake to Neil Diamond’s “Sweet Caroline” while patrons sang along. Inside the Joe’s beer garden, the majority of the
shoulder-to-shoulder crowd was comprised of students, some of them with parents in tow. Unseasonably warm temperatures and dry skies forced the throngs of people outside, with most people only retreating back indoors if their bladders were full or drinks were empty. Craig Geever, a freshman pledging Sigma Nu, attempted to explain the draw of the bars for students Saturday morning. “The bar scene’s kind of all-encompassing here,” Geever said. “Even on a Friday night, not even a Saturday morning, if you’re not at the bar, there’s not a lot of other options to do. So Block is basically just convenient for everyone.” Orange and blue were the dominant colors worn by the Joe’s crowd less than four hours before Saturday’s 2:30 kickoff against Wisconsin. But according to several students, participating in Block doesn’t DECLAN HARTY THE DAILY ILLINI
SEE BLOCK | 3A Students participating in “Block” at Joe’s Brewery the weekend of Homecoming.
Ride Illinois hosts fourth annual bike Bike summit to increase awareness in across state BY ADAM KAZ STAFF WRITER PHOTOS COURTESY OF ACORN
The Acorns application allows users to micro-investment their spare change.
Acorns allows students to begin investing Acorns apps invests spare change in the stock market BY JOE LONGO STAFF WRITER
A new mobile application claims to have taken the confusion and difficulty out of investing. Acorns, a free mobile app, allows users to make micro -investments by automatically investing their spare change in the stock market. The startup requires users to link their credit cards to the application. If a user buys a coffee for $2.75, the app rounds up to
$3 and takes the remaining $.25 and invests it. Instead of singular large lump sums, the app targets constant small round-ups. Launched in 2014 by Walter and Jeff Cruttenden, Acorns currently manages over 650,000 investment accounts said Taylor Dance, Acorns business developer. “People generally associate investing with lots of dollars. Once people find out you can invest spare change, it becomes a very attractive concept,” said Dance. “It gives you the power to grow your investment with small frequent micro-investment.” While Acorns is now available on web, Android and iOS platforms, it initially started as a mobile
app. “We were mobile first, because that is the way of the future,” Dance said. “It is accessible to anyone, anytime and easy to use.” Seventy percent of people who invest with Acorns are under the age of 35. Kathy Sweedler, a financial planning educator for the University of Illinois Extension, said while spare-change investing is not a new concept, the idea of mobile-first investing is. “ T he th i ng about (Acorns) that has made investing — and really all areas of financial planning— so much better for people is it’s right
Cyclists maneuvering across campus is such a common sight that it’s easy to forget the dozens of engineers, city planners and administrators instrumental in making the University campus so bike friendly. The fourth annual Illinois Bike Summit took place Wednesday in the iHotel in Champaign, featuring over 30 speakers and 15 semi-
nars. The topics of these sessions ranged from the “Benefits of Trail Tourism and Cultivating A Culture of Hospitality” to “E-bikes are Coming!” “We had around 300 people, about half of them are what you would call advocates and about half of them are from state or other agencies,” said Gina Kenny, Ride Illinois outreach director. The summit is run by Ride Illinois — formerly known as the League of Illinois Bicyclists — and Champaign County Bikes. “Since 1992, our organization has been dedicated to one mission — to improve bicycling conditions throughout the state,” said Frank Brummer, president
of Ride Illinois. The last Illinois Bike Summit was held in April 2014, which was the first time the event was hosted in Champaign. The last two events were hosted in Normal. Ride Illinois changes the location of the summit every two years so they can spread themselves across the state, said Tania Sebastian, Ride Illinois marketing director and University alumna. “I think the potential for the summit to be a catalyst for a lot of things is what I’m excited about,” said Jeff Yockey, Champaign County Bikes president. “I’m very excited for the cities that are a little farther along to
SEE BIKES | 3A
SEE ACORN | 3A
Alumnus creates online study platform more student friendly BY YI ZHANG STAFF WRITER
It’s not uncommon for University students to bounce from Compass to Moodle and back to keep up with classes, but now some students will have to add another site to the mix. Study Cloud, founded by University alumnus Ravi Pilla, is an educational platform that hosts class syllabi, lecture notes and other course materials — similar to Compass and Moodle.
The platform offers additional features, such as a calendar that syncs with course syllabi, assignment alert notifications and a chat functionality for classmates. Study Cloud has been used by professors at the University’s Chicago and Urbana campuses, as well as at Northern Illinois University and Northwestern University. Sanjay Patel, professor in electrical and computer
engineering, decided to use Study Cloud in his classes this semester. “I am glad to be working with a UIUC startup. The platform allowed me to easily manage my large course and several TAs,” Patel said. “This saved me a lot of time by having one place where students could answer questions and get immediate answers from TAs, other students or
SEE STUDY | 3A
The welcoming bike at the Bike Summit at iHotel on Wednesday.
JUSTIN WOLFE THE DAILY ILLINI
OPINIONS
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Happy Halloween
Pick a pumpkin – fast
An Illinois superfan
The Daily Illini reminds readers to have a safe and spooky holiday weekend.
This year’s pumpkin yield is lower than pervious years due to unfavorable Illinois weather.
Meet the man whose home is decked out in orange and blue in a unique way.
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