Jan 22, 2015 03:16 PM EST By Russell Westerholm, UniversityHerald Reporter

A student at Rice University caught the attention of his school and the U.S. Department of Customs and Border Protection when he had a strange shipment come in from China.

According to ABC 13, David Nichol, a senior at Rice studying engineering, ordered 26 boxes containing 13,000 small plastic balls. After Customs cleared the purchase, Nichol turned his dorm room into a ball pit.

"Customs said, 'We want to make sure they're actually balls in here,' because it's kind of sketchy that someone is just ordering 13,000 balls," he told ABC 13.

Nichol said his ball pit is a reminder to have fun, which would come in handy as a senior studying engineering. His field of expertise was also useful in determining the precise amount of balls to order.

He told Rice's official website he got the idea from Randall Munroe, a roboticist with NASA who created the XKCD web comic. One of his strips in 2006, "Grownups," depicted a grownup with a room full of plastic balls, stating: "We're grownups now, and it's our turn to decide what that means."

Nichol said his family and friends were more confused than anything, but said no one ever told him not to do it.

"A lot of people ask 'Why would you do that?'" Nichol said in a video accompanying the article. "The mentality at Rice is 'Yeah, you should totally do that, it sounds amazing.'"

He does not know what will happen when he graduates in May, but this is the first time he has had a room to himself in college. He lives in a suite with other students and has plenty of people who want to experience the ball pit for themselves, so he has a set of rules: no shoes, no food or beverages and no peeing, among others.

"We'll see. I think when you have an idea you should just go for it. You shouldn't worry about what's going to happen next or what's going to happen after that," Nichol said. "If you're going to keep doing that, you're never going to be able to do cool things like have a ball pit room. Which is my way of saying I don't know what's going to happen to them."

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