Open House

MIT Learning, Life, and Culture

Peek under the dome and see what makes an education and experience at MIT so powerful. The open house offered a wonderful occasion to tour MIT’s beautiful campus and learn how our multicultural student body, faculty, and staff live, learn, work, and play. But all academic year, our residence halls, athletics, student clubs, volunteer opportunities, and community resources are on display!

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Scheduled Activities

The list below includes descriptions of events that open-house visitors were invited to attend.

Shallow water power hour

A high intensity shallow water workout using water as the resistance. No experience required.

Sponsor: MIT Athletics

Restorative Yoga

Designed to increase flexibility and manage injuries, this healing practive will submerge your body and mind in the art of moving meditation.

Drawing elements from Yin, Hatha, Vinyasa, and Tai Chi, you will develop a well-rounded practice and further your understanding of the mind/body connection.

All fitness levels welcome!

Sponsor: MIT Athletics

Underwater video swim stroke analysis

Experience stroke analysis done with the aid of a new underwater video recording system.

See your stroke from four different angles simultaneously.

Sponsor: MIT Athletics

Undergraduate admissions reception center

Stop by to chat with staff from the MIT undergraduate admissions office and current students, as well as pick up admissions materials.

Sponsor: Admissions Office

Festival of Art + Science + Technology Installations (FAST): Overliner

Origami on a large scale, Taking cues from a stairwell's spiraling geometry, Overliner highlights the architectural idiosyncrasies of a public space, transforming a familiar and busy passageway into a moment of surprise and repose.

Location: Medical Center Lobby. By Joel Lamere, Lecturer, Department of Architecture, and Cynthia Gunadi.

Sponsor: Office of the Arts

Timeline of MIT engineering

Engineering has been at the heart of MIT since the Institute was founded 150 years ago. As part of the Institute's anniversary celebration, the nine academic departments of the School of Engineering have collaborated to create a large, legible, and visually compelling history of MIT's research accomplishments and educational advances in engineering.

Sponsor: School of Engineering

Residential Life information booth

The Office of Residential Life includes Dining, FSILGs, Housing, and Residential Life Programs.

Staff from each of these areas will be available to answer any questions you may have about our residential system. Walking tour maps of the residence halls will be available at the booth and the 2011 Residence Hall Time Capsule will be on display.

Sponsor: Department of Housing

Family Fit Walk

A contest for guests to see how many steps they can take during the MIT 150 event.

Volunteers will be scattered around MIT campus passing out pedometers, while supply lasts. Then participants will have until 3 pm to accrue as many steps. Participants will then check-in to one of two tables stationed on campus.

Our volunteers will collect their info and we will follow up with who accrued the most steps and win an Apple product.

Sponsor: Medical Department

MIT150 welcome lounge

All are invited to visit the MIT150 welcome lounge, located in room 26-110, for information on the anniversary programs and events.

Visitors to the center may read books and watch videos about MIT, browse photographs from the Institute’s opening in 1861, and see items on loan from the MIT Museum.

Sponsor: MIT150 Committee

MIT Museum inside out

Free admission all day at the MIT Museum, as it turns itself inside out for the Institute's Under the Dome: Come Explore MIT! (and the first day of the Cambridge Science Festival). Go behind the scenes of the museum and explore unique artifacts from MIT's history, as well as innovations in art, science and technology in Cambridge and beyond.

The day's programs will feature tours, hands-on activities, and a chance for visitors of all ages to see and chat with the people behind the Museum's MIT150 exhibition.

Sponsor: MIT Museum

Festival of Art + Science + Technology Installations (FAST): Wind Screen

A shimmering curtain of light creates a visual register of the replenishable source of wind energy, created by micro-turbines. Location: Green Building facade. By Meejin Yoon, Associate Professor of Architecture.

Sponsor: Office of the Arts

Cracking up! How rock cracks under stress

Researchers in the rock mechanics lab in the Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering study the basic mechanics of rock, applying high stresses to different types of material to study its fracturing and crack coalescence behavior (the cracks that form between flaws that exist in rock).

Their work involves use of a high-speed camera that captures videos of up to 24,000 frames per second, allowing the researchers to tape and then replay rock fracturing at speeds the human eye and brain can comprehend.

This exhibit will include samples of fractured rocks, videos of undergraduate students using very high pressure to crack rocks, and a poster describing the process.

The exhibitors are Professor Herbert Einstein and Undergraduates Julie Harrow & Catherine Johnson.

Sponsor: Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering

Paper airplane competition

We will be producing airplanes of all colors, shapes and sizes! Prizes will be awarded to the models with the longest range.

This activity is ideal for elementary school kids, although all ages are welcome!

Sponsor: American Institute of Aeronautics and Astronautics

Eliot K. Wolk Gallery — design competition exhibit

The public face of MIT is 77 Massachusetts Avenue. The building, with its imposing Ionic porch and lofty interior, is not only an architectural landmark in its own right, but also the gateway into the world of MIT. Since its construction in 1939, the four plinths that define the corners of the great rotunda have remained empty. They were originally intended as the bases for statues celebrating Aristotle, Ictinus, Archimedes and Callicrates.

This year, in celebration of MIT’s 150th anniversary, the Class of 1954 issued a grand challenge to the students of MIT to present ideas about how to fill the four Lobby 7 plinths. Designs were to be created in the spirit of MIT’s official creed mens et manus and to celebrate the past, present, and future spirit of MIT innovation.

The Lobby 7 Design Competition Committee received fifty-four student entries from across the Institute's schools and departments. Of those, fourteen entries were chosen. The winners of that first round were then invited to refine their projects. From these, the jury selected the six finalists, and prize winners, in the undergraduate and graduate categories.

Sponsor: Department of Architecture

Festival of Art + Science + Technology Installations (FAST): String Tunnel

A diaphonous tunnel creates a sense of entry to and from the Infinite Corridor, and frames the surrounding landscape.

Location: Between the Dreyfus & Whitaker Buildings (Suspended from the sky bridge). By Yuna Kim, Kelly Shaw and Travis Williams, graduate students in Architecture.

Sponsor: Office of the Arts

Renewable energy, cheap charcoal, rainwater harvesting and water purification in Uganda

The MIT Chapter of Engineering Without Borders is in the process of providing eletricity (via solar panels) and clean water to the the Engeye Health Clinic in Ddegeya, Southern Uganda.

EWB is also showing villagers how to make a renewable charcoal fuel for cooking food, and creating new water systems, such as a rainwater harvesting tank and SODIS water purifiers for the entire village, which now relies on one dug pond and a single well. (Children often make several trips a day to the pond, carrying jerrycans of water up to two miles each way.)

This exhibit will describe the project on posters, demonstrate how to make charcoal using banana leaves, corn cobs and banana peels, display a prototype of the rainwater harvesting system, allow hands-on water testing, and demonstrate SODIS water purification, in which plastic jugs of water are purified by UV rays and heat from the sun.

The exhibitor is Marisa Simmons. Hosted by the Department of Civil & Environmental Engineering, Engineers Without Borders and Civil and Environmental Engineering Students.

Sponsor: Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering

Fly a SPHERES satellite

The Space Systems Lab has many of their basketball-sized self-propelled satellites aboard the International Space Station. Now’s your chance to operate an identical one here on earth in a series of one-minute contests!

Good piloting skills will win you a SPHERES sticker. And while in the SSL, take a look at lots of other cool vehicles and projects.

Sponsor: Department of Aeronautics and Astronautics

Festival of Art + Science + Technology Installations (FAST): Bibliodoptera

Newly emerged from the chrysalis of MIT's diverse library pages, a cloud of butterflies flutters above, reacting to the movement of passersby.

Location: Archives Hall, corridor between Lewis & Hayden Libraries. By Elena Jessop and Peter Torpey, graduate students in Media Arts and Sciences.

Sponsor: Office of the Arts

GAMBIT game lab open house

It's playtime at the Singapore-MIT GAMBIT Game Lab!

Find out what a game research lab does: take a tour of the lab, talk to its researchers and developers who spend their days pushing the envelope of video game innovation, and, of course, play our latest game prototypes.

For a preview, go to gambit.mit.edu to play our online games.

Game on!

Sponsor: Comparative Media Studies

MIT Toastmasters Public Speaking Group presents "Speech-athon"

Join the MIT Chapter of Toastmasters International for a group meeting-everyone is welcome, and especially former members of the Toastmasters clubs.

We'll be in 3-133 in the morning for a regular meeting, then in the Amphitheater from 2pm - 4pm for a Speech-A-Thon.

Sponsor: MIT Toastmasters

Compton Gallery — MIT150 exhibition

Located in the heart of campus under the big dome, the MIT Museum's Compton Gallery is a changing exhibition space where visitors encounter a wide range of exhibitions that encompass the varied fields of science, technology, architecture, history, and art.

Sponsor: MIT Museum

Koch Institute Public Galleries

The Koch Institute Public Galleries were established to connect the community in Kendall Square and beyond with the work of the David H. Koch Institute for Integrative Cancer Research.

Within the Galleries, visitors can explore current cancer research projects, examine striking biomedical images, hear first-person reflections on cancer and cancer research, and investigate the historical, geographical and scientific contexts out of which the Koch Institute emerged.

Sponsor: David H Koch Institute for Integrative Cancer Research

TALARIS and Exoplanet Sat: how do Draper and MIT engineers get a spacecraft to hop or look at stars in space to discover planets?

Since the inception of NASA and its Apollo program, Draper Laboratory (formerly the MIT Instrumentation Lab) has been on the leading edge of space exploration technology.

Join us as we demonstrate our latest partnerships with MIT in the area of space exploration: TALARIS, a planetary hopper that is a joint Draper and MIT Aero/Astro project being developed for the Google Lunar X Prize, and Exoplanet Satellite, a cubesat designed by MIT Department of Earth, Atmospheric and Planetary Sciences (EAPS) and Draper to study nearby stars for evidence of transitory planets.

Sponsor: Draper Laboratory

Chaplaincy history exhibit

Beginning during the open house on April 30 and running through Commencement, the MIT board of chaplains presents a history of religious life at MIT, with posters created by the various groups in the Office of Religious Life.

Sponsor: Religious Life

Geiger Trophy: varsity co-ed sailing competition on the Charles River

The Geiger Trophy is a sailing competition that draws collegiate sailors from 10+ colleges and universities.

Multiple races will take place between 11am-1pm and the competition will be coordinated from the Sailing Pavilion.

Sponsor: DAPER Intercollegiate Sports

Festival of Art + Science + Technology Installations (FAST): MIT Mood Meter

Is the smile a barometer of happiness? MIT Mood Meter is designed to assess and display the overall mood of the MIT community. The collected data is viewable at: http://moodmeter.media.mit.edu/

By Javier Hernandez and M. Ehsan Hoque, graduate students of Media( Arts and Sciences, School of Architecture

Sponsor: Office of the Arts

Digital mapping tools introduced by MIT GIS services

Learn about creating maps with Geographic Information Systems (GIS) and collecting data in your community with a global positioning system (GPS) unit. A GIS provides tools for analyzing scientific and cultural data, as well as data collected by individuals (like you). Session will include demonstration and a chance for everyone to collect data outside and create their own maps.

Sponsor: MIT Libraries

Creative talents: music performances, yo-yo's, and more

A showcase of the creative talents of MIT students. Everything from music to yo yo's and much more.

Sponsor: Association of Student Activities, Undergraduate Association, Campus Activities Complex, and Student Activities Office

MIT OpenCourseWare: unlocking knowledge and empowering minds

Come learn about MIT OpenCourseWare – a website that makes course materials used in the teaching of almost all of MIT’s undergraduate and graduate subjects available, free of charge, to any user anywhere in the world. Hear about our milestones as we celebrate our 10th anniversary, and find out about our next decade initiatives.

Sponsor: OpenCourseWare

Magnetic levitating ball and inverted pendulum demonstrations

See actual lecture demonstrations used in undergraduate electrical engineering classes, and learn about electromagnetism and feedback control.

All ages!

Sponsor: Electrical Engineering and Computer Science Graduate Students Association

The dawn of MIT: its founding documents and buildings

This extraordinary exhibit will include MIT’s original charter, on loan from the Massachusetts State Archives just for this occasion, as well as other significant documents and artifacts.

On display to the general public for the first time is an original pen and ink drawing by architect William Welles Bosworth of the Cambridge campus Building 10. Did you know it used to be number 17? This is a rare opportunity to glimpse treasured materials from the founding of the Institute.

Come see and learn about MIT’s origins.

Sponsor: MIT Libraries and the Department of Facilities

Exhibit: student life through the decades

See reflections of student life over the decades from the perspective of students themselves. Jointly sponsored with the Graduate Student Council, the Tech, and the Technique Yearbook.

Sponsor: Campus Activities Complex

Flying parrot, unmanned aerial vehicles

Watch as we control our micro aerial vehicles — by an iPhone! These little guys are test beds for new little UAVs suitable for urban environments.

Sponsor: Department of Aeronautics and Astronautics

Mobile advanced command and control system display

MACCS is a mobile, always connected command and control station for controlling unmanned aerial vehicles and other systems.

Sponsor: Department of Aeronautics and Astronautics

Exhibits from the MIT Glass Lab, Student Art Association, and the MIT Hobby Shop

Each group will display piece produced in their lab, studio and shop. In some cases the creator will be there to explain their artwork.

Sponsor: Campus Activities Complex

LEGO robots save the universe!

Yes, these are the same LEGOs you played with as a child, but taken to a much higher level!

A quarter century of LEGO robotics competition at MIT—the 6.270 Autonomous LEGO Robot Design Competition—will give a demonstration from the student-taught class on robot design.

Sponsor: Electrical Engineering and Computer Science

A showcase of invention as public service at MIT

A window to the work of public service innovators who are tackling barriers to well-being faced by people around the world. Learn about projects and meet teams competing for $150,000 in implementation grants in this year's IDEAS Competition and MIT Global Challenge.

Sponsor: Public Service Center

Check mate: blitz chess and other games

Come and play blitz chess and all types of games with MIT students in the Stratton Student Center Coffee House Lounge.

Sponsor: Association of Student Activities, Undergraduate Association, Campus Activities Complex, and Student Activities Office

Timeline of MIT Athletics through the years

Visti the Z Center lobby to see a timeline of the history of athletics at MIT.

Sponsor: MIT Athletics

BLOSSOMS: building science, technology, engineering, and math STEM education worldwide

Watch BLOSSOMS (Blended Learning Open Source Science or Math Studies) videos and learning modules and talk to students and staff about this large, free repository of video modules for high school math and science classes.

Sponsor: Engineering Systems Division

Discover MIT's Department of Biology with videos of distinguished faculty and more

"Biology@MITechnology" - Video presentations of distinguished faculty, scientific simulations, BioFact sheet, souvenirs

Sponsor: Department of Biology

Autonomous robotics competition

Come watch autonomous robots compete to establish dominance on the playing field!

By collecting balls and throwing them onto their opponent's side of the field, these robots attempt to clear their own side, while being constantly bombarded by balls from their opponent.

Designed, built, and programmed by teams of three or four students in less than a month for a class called Maslab, these robots are prime examples of both the ingenuity and dedication of MIT students.

Sponsor: Department of Electrical Engineering and Computer Science

2011 Residential Life time capsule

After 150 years, MITs student housing is rich with history, traditions, and culture. Halls in undergraduate and graduate housing and Fraternities, Sororities and Independent Living Group (FSILGs) have contributed an item to the 2011 Residence Hall Time Capsule.

The items will be on display at the Residential Life Booth located in the Student Center. Come see what each hall has dedicated and be a part of sealing our history for another 150 years!

Sponsor: Department of Housing

Constructing a steel bridge

The MIT Steel Bridge Team has been competing in the National Student Steel Bridge Competition since 2007. In 2010, the team broke into the Top 10, placing first in several categories.

Participants in the competition are required to design a 20-foot bridge that is constructed in pieces and optimizes three key components: speed of assembly (the top speed in 2010 was 3 minutes, 12 seconds), deflection or sag (the bridge must withstand loads of 2,500 pounds), and weight.

The bridge design and construction area are subjected to numerous constraints such as every piece must fit into a small box (about 3.5ft x 6in x 6in), and during construction, each team member is allowed to stand in certain parts of the construction area and hold only one member piece at a time. This requires team members to pass pieces from hand to hand, relay-race style, as they construct the bridge.

The 2010 steel bridge will be on display along with a short video showing the team constructing the bridge. The exhibitor is Matt Pires '10.

Sponsor: Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering

Use brain wave sensors in SCRATCH

SCRATCH is a programming language people use to create interactive objects, games, music, and art, and share them online.

Come and interact with a SCRATCH project using brain waves. Kids will have an opportunity to change a sprite's scripts to change what their brain waves affect on the screen.

Co-sponsored by the MIT Student Branch of ACM/IEEE (Association for Computing Machinery/Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers) and the Department of Electrical Engineering and Computer Science (EECS).

Sponsor: Department of Electrical Engineering & Computer Science

Hands-on tour of "Junior Lab" in the Department of Physics

Take a hands-on tour of the Department of Physic's teaching labs, where "Junior Lab" (an infamously difficult course in experimental physics) takes place.

See a collection of experiments which tell the story of how modern physics was discovered in the early 20th century.

Sponsor: Department of Physics

Transition: the flying car (or drivable airplane)

Several years ago three Department of Aeronautics and Astronautics grad students began testing in our Wind Tunnel their concept for the first practical flying car.

Today, degrees in hand, they have started their own company, Terrafugia, flown a prototype, and are now manufacturing the vehicles.

See the prototype and talk with the builders.

Sponsor: Department of Aeronautics and Astronautics

MIT fraternity, sorority, and independent living groups: a history of public service

The Association, in coordination with the Interfraternity Council, the Panhellenic Association, and Living Group Council, will tell our history — and will publicize our current programs — of public service to MIT and to the people of Greater Boston.

Sponsor: Alumni Association

Festival of Art + Science + Technology Installations (FAST): voltaDom

A vaulted passageway as you've never seen it! voltaDom utilizes an innovative fabrication technique that creates complex double curved vaults through the simple rolling of a sheet of material. By Skylar Tibbits, Lecturer, Department of Architecture.

Sponsor: Office of the Arts

Fencing demonstration – Q&A

Junior level fencing instruction is scheduled to take place from 11am - 1pm in the fencing room.

Visitors can stop by and watch, listen, learn and ask questions about regional, national, international and college level fencing.

Sponsor: DAPER Intercollegiate Sports

Physics demonstration exhibit

Explore interactive, hands-on desktop experiments focusing on areas such as kinematics and dynamic motion, electromagnetism, resonance, and oscillations. Larger demonstrations will be performed to show the more theatrical aspects of a compelling lecture to a large audience.

Finally, displayed on the many projection screens in the TEAL classroom will be screenings of our ever-expanding collection of videos, available on the web, of demonstrations either too elaborate or dangerous to present in the usual classroom setting.

Experienced technical instructors will be on hand throughout the event to present topics, assist with equipment, and elucidate concepts. This is a must see activity!

Sponsor: Department of Physics

Festival of Art + Science + Technology Installations (FAST): Soft Rockers

Using ZipShape computer aided fabrication methods and solar powered technology, these rockers invite repose while powering your electronic devices. by Sheila Kennedy, MIT Professor of the Practice of Architecture

Sponsor: Office of the Arts

Terrascope 2013: reducing atmospheric CO2

Terrascope is a learning community in which freshmen study and find solutions to real-world problems. In the fall, the class addresses a single big, multidisciplinary problem, then presents a solution and defends it before a panel of experts. In the spring, the students divide into teams to test, implement or build upon their ideas and present their work in an end-of-semester Bazaar of Ideas.

This exhibit will show posters describing some of the student projects, which included building and testing a model of a geological carbon-sequestration site; developing less greenhouse-intensive forms of concrete; prototyping a new energy-storage mechanism for offshore windmills; designing a multiplayer game to teach players about control of atmospheric carbon; and creating an interactive museum about greenhouse gases and methods of mitigation.

The exhibitors are Professor Charles Harvey and Dr. Ari Epstein, Lecturer.

Sponsor: Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering

Zero robotics competition

Try your hand at programming a Space Systems Lab SPHERES self-propelled microsatellite like the ones we’re testing on the International Space Station.

Sponsor: Department of Aeronautics and Astronautics

Hart Nautical Gallery exhibit

MIT Museum's Hart Nautical Collections were formed in 1924 under MIT's Department of Naval Architecture and Marine Engineering, which was renamed the Department of Ocean Engineering in the 1970s. In 2005, ocean engineering merged with the Department of Mechanical Engineering to become one of seven major research focus areas.

Featured exhibit: "The evolution of ship design"

Forty of the museum's finest full-hull ship models depict one thousand years of ship building, from a fifteenth century iron-clad warship to the swiftest clipper ships. Also included is an extraordinary model of N.G. Herreshoff's Reliance.

Sponsor: MIT Museum

Festival of Art + Science + Technology Installations (FAST): Dis[Course]4

A light-catching demonstration of student imagination and ingenuity. Location: Stairwell 3, Infinite Corridor. By Craig Boney, James Coleman and Andrew Manto, graduate students in the Department of Architecture.

Sponsor: Office of the Arts

Technology-enabled education at MIT: learn how technology advances learning and teaching

How can MIT amplify and extend its educational value proposition, which recognizes that the best learning is a deep human endeavor and that is largely conducted in a residential campus, through the affordances provided by emerging technologies?

The question is not new, and over the decades MIT has developed institutional responses to it through the imagination and innovativeness of its faculty, students and staff.

The OEIT Open House will showcase some of the ways MIT faculty, students and staff are using technology to advance teaching and learning at MIT, and beyond. Featured project demonstrations, interactive presentations, and on-site consultations will highlight ways to use technology for innovative pedagogy and engaging learning both in K-12 and higher education. Teachers, faculty, students, and parents are welcome to join.

Some of the topics and themes covered at this event are:

- Finding and integrating digital content - Supporting global learning experiences - Visualization and simulation - Open educational tools and resources

Sponsor: Office of the Dean for Undergraduate Education

Festival of Art + Science + Technology Installations (FAST): Night of Numbers

A lighting installation using powerful LCD projectors to enliven the architecture at the Ames Street pedestrian crossway with numbers that hold special or historical significance to the Institute. Can you decode them all? Location: 66-68 Connector. By Praveen Subramani, graduate student in Media Arts and Sciences, and Anna Kotova, undergraduate student in Architecture.

Sponsor: Office of the Arts

MIT Electronics Research Society (MITERS) Open House

Come see all the cool projects that the MIT Electronics Research Society (MITERS) made! Featuring Tesla coils, electric vehicles, things that light up, things that go bang, a 3D printer, and numerous other amazing things, all made by MIT students.

MITERS is MIT's student run hackerspace. It provides a student-run shop, equipment, and a generally awesome place for anyone who loves to build things.

Sponsor: Electronic Research Society

Preserving your family's history

Visit the Wunsch Conservation Lab where the MIT Libraries preserve their collections using modern science and traditional craft. MIT Libraries' conservator and preservation librarian will explain how to care for your family papers, photographs, home videos, and digital media.

Hand-outs with basic information and sources of archival supplies will be available. Sessions will last 45 minutes. Tours are limited to 20 people and will begin every hour on the hour.

Sponsor: MIT Libraries

Bits, electrons, and robots

Come see robot competitions, research demos, robots, and more from undergraduates, graduate students, researchers and faculty in Electrical Engineering & Computer Science (EECS)!

Sponsor: Department of Electrical Engineering & Computer Science

Battlecode! Artificial intelligence programming competition

See the virtual robots battle for eternal glory! Battlecode is the premier artificial intelligence (AI) programming competition at MIT. Over 500 students nationwide compete every year during January for recognition and prize money.

Competitors program an AI that controls virtual robots that battle head to head in order to achieve eternal glory.

Sponsor: Electrical Engineering and Computer Science Graduate Students Association

Aircraft carrier deck operations — action planner demo

Orchestrating the movement of aircraft (manned and unmanned), support vehicles, and crew within the confines of a carrier deck is an extremely complex operation.

See how our computerized large tabletop display will help supervisors overseeing these critical activities.

Sponsor: Department of Aeronautics and Astronautics

Wiesner Student Art Gallery

The Wiesner Student Art Gallery is an exhibition space for currently enrolled MIT students and groups.

Featured exhibit: Iran: the unguarded moments.

In contrast with many recent exhibitions on Iran, which tend to attract attention by focusing on the political tensions of present day, this exhibit focuses on the daily implications of cultural and habitual behaviors.

Throughout this exhibition the viewer is confronted by colorful and harmonious images displaying the unguarded moment, the essential sense of being, and the experience of contentment.

Sponsor: Office of the Arts

What is the Engineering Systems Division (ESD)?

Watch a video about the MIT Engineering Systems Division, talk to students and staff, and take some ESD materials.

There also will be videos about and info tables for the Leaders for Global Operations program and the MIT Portugal program.

Sponsor: Engineering Systems Division

OpenKinect symphony conductor — conduct the music of your dreams!

Ever dream of being a symphony conductor? Now's your chance! Come conduct the music of your dreams! We'll provide the symphony — you provide your charm.

This demonstration uses Microsoft's Kinect technology and allows body gestures to control all sorts of things. If you enjoy this, be sure to check out other demos at OpenKinect.org.

Sponsor: Electrical Engineering and Computer Science Graduate Students Association

Painting the Financial Picture of MIT

This “behind the scenes" exhibit will showcase the financial operations and financial history of MIT. The goal is to provide visitors with a look at some of the vital financial offices that have supported the MIT mission for 150 years.

Painting the Financial Picture will include exhibits on the endowment, sponsored research accounting, gifts, budget and much more.

Sponsor: Office of the Vice President for Finance

Hobby Shop open house

Tour of the Hobby Shop facility. Demonstrations of equipment and hands-on building "do-it" tour in conjunction with D Lab.

Sponsor: Hobby Shop

Army National Guard and MIT ROTC UH-60 Blackhawk helicopter fly-in

The UH-60 Blackhawk is the Army’s utility tactical transport helicopter, entering service in 1979 to replace the smaller UH-1 Huey of Vietnam-era fame. Courtesy of the Rhode Island Army National Guard and MIT Army ROTC, a pair of Blackhawks will land in Briggs field and be available for up-close inspection. Their crews will be happy to tell you about the aircraft and answer your questions.

Sponsor: Department of Aeronautics and Astronautics

Technology and Development Program, MIT Abu Dhabi Program

MIT's Technology and Development Program is assisting in the development of the Masdar Institute in Abu Dhabi. TDP's role with the Masdar Institute is diverse and evolving, but currently is focused on four main areas:

1. Development and management of joint collaborative research 2. Assistance in development of degree programs 3. Outreach that encourages industrial participation in Institute research and development activities 4. Support for capacity building at the Institute in terms of its organizational and administrative structure as well as scholarly assessment of potential faculty candidates

Masdar Institute is a private, not-for-profit, research-driven, post-graduate university.

Sponsor: Technology and Development Program

Golf swing analysis

Video analysis on-site to help our instructor critique your swing and give feedback for improving your game.

Sponsor: MIT Athletics

Do-It Tours by the Hobby Shop, Edgerton Center Student Shop, and D-Lab

MIT has a long history of invention and innovation. Please join us for a tour of some spaces that support the vibrant "do-it" culture on campus, where you will be exposed to the learning-by-doing philosophy first hand. You will have a chance to work in the Hobby Shop, Edgerton Center Student Shop, and D-Lab on a project to make bamboo crayons, which we are developing as an income-generating project for our community partners in Ghana and India. Tours will meet in the Student Center Lobby (W20) at 1 pm and 2:30pm and are limited to 15 people. You can also feel free to just stop by the Hobby Shop (W31 basement) and D-Lab (E34 floor 1-2) to see some student projects and technology demonstrations from 1pm-4pm during the Open House.

The Hobby Shop (http://hobbyshop.mit.edu) is a fully equipped wood and metal shop that teaches students the art of thoughtful design. It has been fostering MIT's spirit of learning by doing for over 70 years by providing tools, training and assistance to all MIT students, faculty, staff and alums interested in turning their ideas into reality.

The Edgerton Center Student Shop (http://web.mit.edu/Edgerton/www/Shop.html) provides hands-on training in the use of machine tools, access to them, and guidance in project planning, to any current MIT student. The shop has a long history of supporting student groups at MIT including the Solar Electric Vehicle Team, Formula SAE Team and FIRST Robotics Team.

D-Lab (http://d-lab.mit.edu) is a program that fosters the development of appropriate technologies and sustainable solutions within the framework of international development. D-Lab's mission is to improve the quality of life of low-income households through the creation and implementation of low cost technologies. With projects and partnerships in 20+ countries and 12+ classes at MIT falling into the broad categories of Development, Design and Dissemination, D-Lab engages over 300 students a year through experiential learning, using technology to address poverty, and building the local creative capacity for innovation.

Sponsor: Edgerton Center

Media Laboratory project demonstrations

Designers, engineers, artists, and scientists at the MIT Media Lab apply an unorthodox research approach to envision the impact of emerging technologies on everyday life technologies which promise to fundamentally transform our most basic notions of human capabilities.

Research topics range from neuroengineering, to how children learn, to the future of story and music, to re-imagining the city.

Researchers present examples of the Media Lab's inventions, many of which can be experienced hands-on.

Sponsor: Media Laboratory

Stopping time at the Edgerton Center

Visit Strobe Alley, home of professor Harold Edgerton's Stroboscopic Light Laboratory. Operate the displays of levitating water drops. Have your photo taken as you pop a balloon (and see the balloon in mid-pop).

Enjoy the exhibits of Edgerton's life and work. See how MIT is continuing his legacy of learning through doing.

Sponsor: Edgerton Center

Tech Model Railroad Club Open House

The Tech Model Railroad club is an MIT student activity founded furing the 1946-1947 school year, making this our 64th year, and making TMRC one of the oldest clubs at MIT.

We will have many trains running throughout the day, and will be happy to show and tell you about our:

- Computerized control system - Hand-laid track - Scenery - Streetcar system - Green Building Tetris game - And much more!

Sponsor: Tech Model Railroad Club

Learn to folk dance

Come learn some easy circle dances from Eastern Europe and around the world, in time signatures you've never heard of (plus some you have).

Sponsor: Association of Student Activities, Undergraduate Association, Campus Activities Complex, and Student Activities Office

Visitor and alumni fly-in to Beverly Airport (with BBQ!)

Fly to Beverly Airport for the MIT open house!

Instead of driving, consider flying an aircraft (your own or a rental) to Beverly Airport for the MIT open house. Transportation between the airport and MIT will be provided by the MIT Flying Club.

After the open house, we invite you to join us at the airport for the revealing of the Flying Club's newest acquisition. We'll have a BBQ and free introductory flights will be provided!

Sponsor: Department of Aeronautics and Astronautics