What IS this?

Honestly, what is it? Well I know it's an... installation of some sort outside of the science building where I work, but I have no idea what it's supposed to be.

Anyway, I'm visiting home for the weekend so I'm finally getting to catch up with sleep and just hanging out. So far we've gone out for dinner and I slept for about 11 hours last night, then we went out for brunch/lunch and done some errands. Right now my brother's looking at backpacks for hiking/camping which he apparently got interested in while I wasn't looking. Looks like we're heading out though, so I'm gonna go play games or something probably.