2.177 Fall 2025
Designing Virtual Worlds
co-listed as 16.677, 2.178, CMS.342/942
Friday, 1:30pm to 4:30pm (lecture/workshop), plus
one of Tuesday or Wednesday, 7pm to 9pm (lab)
Instructor: Ken Zolot, plus distinguished guests, with Aeronautics and Astronautics support from Oli de Weck and Rea Lavi
Students work in teams of interdisciplinary peers from Berklee College of Music, Harvard University, and MIT to develop Virtual, Augmented, and Extended Reality experiences. As a special focus for Fall 2025, we will explore applications to aerospace engineering and planetary visualizations. Our semester will include (1) building a working virtual world using state of the art tools; (2) creating a plan for launching the product for wide-scale adoption; and (3) interacting with visiting distinguished guests, leaders in XR community, who will serve as coaches for projects. Students will have significant leeway to customize their own learning environment. Students will get access to specialized equipment and mentors.
Classes meet on Fridays, starting Sep 5, 2025, ending Dec 5. Recitation/review sessions met on Tuesdays or Wednesdays at 7pm - 9pm (students pick from one of two repeating sessions each week). All meetings are in-person on the MIT campus.
Our list of projects is in draft form, and will change over the coming days. You can get a preview here.
To see our learning objectives, click here.
To see the rough notes from prior semesters, click here, here or here, and click here to download a booklet about a our 2018 prototype class.
To request a spot, please complete our form here.