Every other year, Zahner produces one or more artworks in conjunction with the Kansas City Art Institute's Biennial Auction for Student Scholarships. In the 2007 year, artist Reilly Hoffman won the competition with a sculpture entitled, 'Oculus'. Zahner manufactured the base form in aluminum, and water jet cut the parts for the sculpture. Hoffman then crafted copper and steel with his signature torch-carving techniques.
The design of the artwork is based on a smaller version of the artwork. The artwork's concept is a sphere which has been cut into slices. Two of the slices are intertwined in a kiss. The sculpture's exterior appearance is a rough steel, while its inner areas are clad in copper.
Although diminutive when compared to buildings, the sculpture is still quite large compared to the human scale. The large size required the use of a substructure to apply the metal surface.
To create the sculpture in its large form required making changes to the how the artwork is manufactured. Zahner engineers in the Design Assist team proposed using ZEPPS, a Zahner-patented system developed for building curves. Using the this system enabled the team to make a light aluminum understructure to which the metal surface was attached.