2003-2004 Funded Projects
CAD POSTUP@MIT - $17,000
Professor Lawrence Sass, Architecture
This project will prepare and support an undergraduate workshop Professor Sass will teach in the fall focused on creating complex CAD files. These CAD files can be cut or built on a rapid prototyping machine and create building models on laser cutters and three-dimensional printers. A specially constructed website will be built for posting these files, so that MIT and non-MIT students can share and use them. Based on past work, CAD POSTUP@MIT will serve as a guide for MIT and non-MIT students in developing and posting such files.
Cross-Fertilizing Science and Street Smarts - $16,000
Professor Donald Sadoway, Materials Science
and Engineering
Professor Rosalind Williams, Science, Technology, and Society
Professors Sadoway and Williams are proposing a new HASS-D CI class, offered as an STS subject, specially designed for first-term freshmen taking 3.091. The new class will be intimately coordinated with the scientific and technical material covered in 3.091. The aim is that the two subjects mutually enhance and cross-fertilize each other, so that the interconnections essential to MIT students' future careers are to be a part of the curriculum from the start of the MIT academic experience. This model of HASS classes linked with science core classes can be replicated for other subjects, opening numerous possibilities for a more exciting, intellectually integrated first-year experience.
Developing 24.900, Introduction to Linguistics - $17,340
Professors Suzanne Flynn and David Pesetsky, Linguistics and Philosophy
At present, 24.900 serves as a general required introduction for Course 9 majors in Cognitive Science, as well as a subject that has been popular with students from a wide range of other majors. Professors Flynn and Pesetsky propose additional curricular developments in keeping with 24.900's recent designation as both a HASS-D and a CI-H subject. In particular, they will continue developing the five basic overlapping modules for the class and put some material into electronic archival form, have the students develop a fieldwork project that will extend over the length of the semester, and modify or develop online capabilities for interactive submission of work and exchanges between instructors and students.
Educational Demonstrations and Displays for 3.A24 and 3.032 - $8,500
Professor Lorna Gibson, Materials Science and Engineering
In this project Professor Gibson will develop hands-on demonstrations, posters, and a web-site on the structure and mechanics of selected plant and animal materials. One set of displays will be produced in her service learning freshman seminar for use by the Boston Nature Center in teaching Boston public school students. A second set of more advanced displays will be produced for use as case students in 3.032 Mechanical Properties of Materials as part of the new DMSE undergraduate curriculum.
MIT Teacher Education Program Teacher Licensure Initiative - $10,000
Professor Eric Klopfer, Urban Studies and Planning & Teacher Education Program
Last year, with the support of the MIT Alumni Sponsored Funds, the Teacher Education Program developed a new subject sequence that offered the full teacher certification program through MIT. Professor Klopfer will expand and support this program through the continued development of new subjects, through supporting of MIT Teacher Fellows who will teach core classes, and through contracting master teachers to supervise student teachers in the field.
Modern Engineering Design and Rapid Prototyping - $17,500
Professor Olivier de Weck, Engineering Systems
Division & Aeronautics and Astronautics
Professor David Wallace, Mechanical Engineering
Colonel Peter Young and Dr. Il-Yong Kim, Aeronautics and Astronautics
Professor de Weck and his colleagues will develop an intense 6-unit IAP subject that will take students through the conception, design and implementation of a single structural component. This will provide a satisfactory end-to-end experience, meeting an existing need and resulting in a deeper understanding of the interplay between the creative human mind and modern computer aided design processes. The novelty in this proposal is to combine rapid prototyping with optimization in order to demonstrate the complementary capabilities of humans and computers during the design process.
Molecular Biotechnology Undergraduate Laboratory Initiative - $22,500
Professors Gregory Stephanopoulos, Daniel Wang, and Joanne Kelleher, Chemical Engineering
Recently the Department of Chemical Engineering proposed a new degree on Chemical and Biological Engineering, termed course X-B, a cornerstone of which is a new laboratory course on Biological Engineering, 10.28. Professors Stephanopoulos, Wang, and Kelleher will oversee a summer initiative where advanced undergraduates develop and test potential laboratory modules for this subject. Their goal is to produce a toolbox of vectors containing reporter genes to monitor each stage of production of a recombinant product. These vectors will be the starting points for projects to be developed in 10.28.
Open Crystal Chemistry - $11,000
Professor W. Craig Carter, Materials Science and Engineering
Professor Carter proposes developing an electronic library of three-dimensional, rotatable models to illustrate crystal and molecular structures, which would be accessible to the MIT community and beyond through OpenCourseWare. While some electronic libraries exist, they are typically generated by and for biochemists and are libraries of structures of organic molecules. They will develop a meta-library of crystallographic structures in a format that allows conversion to existing and yet-to-be-developed formats for three-dimensional visualization programs.
The Digital Chemistry Techniques Manual - $11,000
Doctor Sarah Tabacco and Professor Rick Danheiser, Chemistry
The undergraduate chemistry laboratory sequence at ZMIT is an innovative, interdisciplinary program that provides students with a wide breadth of hands-on laboratory experience. Unfortunately, it is not always possible to provide students with the personalized instruction they may need to develop effective technique in the laboratory. Dr. Tabacco and Professor Danheiser propose to create a digital video manual designed to demonstrate and teach laboratory techniques and safety procedures to students in these labs. The Digital Chemistry Techniques Manual will improve the quality of instruction in the laboratory subjects and should serve as a valuable resource for UROP students as well.
The Discovery Concept in Thermal-Fluids Engineering - $23,000
Professor Ernest Cravalho, Mechanical Engineering
"Discovery" is a teaching modality that has recently emerged in the Department of Mechanical Engineering as a way of enhancing the education process in cores subjects. Professor Cravalho proposes to develop this concept further in a manner that is appropriate for subjects 2.005 and 2.006, Thermal-fluids Engineering I and II. The work will involve the design and fabrication of 10 discovery experiments and their deployment to enhance the lectures of these subjects.
Service Learning Initiatives - $20,000
Amy Banzaert, Public Service Center and Edgerton
Center
Sally Susnowitz, Public Service Center
Doctor Amy Smith, Edgerton Center
This award brings together to fund 3 separate, but related proposals, for Public Service Design Seminars (PSDS), for Service Learning at MIT, and for Curricular Initiative for Development Design (CIDD). The PSDS provide hands-on engineering design education through projects that benefit the community, locally and internationally. Service Learning at MIT is a teaching philosophy and methodology that provides students with the opportunity to learn and apply their course material by engaging in projects that fill genuine community needs. And CIDD is a 4-part series of classes and field trips focusing on international development and appropriate technology. Given the similar nature of this work and the collegial working relationships of the principal investigators, these funds were awarded to the 3 PIs to determine how best to be used in the context of these proposals.
Visualization of Proteins Using Physical and Electronic Models - $20,000
Professor David Gossard, Mechanical Engineering
Professor Jonathan King, Biology
Proteins, the building blocks and machinery of all living cells, are complex three-dimensional structures that are very difficult for students to visualize. Professors Gossard and King will design and manufacture one ore more physical models of pedagogically important proteins for use in the classroom. Despite the enormous importance of the 3-D structure of proteins, the use of physical models in the classroom is still very limited and should provide an important level of motivation to empower our students' understanding.
