The Mark Epstein Innovation Gallery

The MIT Media Laboratory City Car

The creators of the City Car envision their vehicle as part of a new urban transportation ecosystem. It's a new kind of car that is part mechanical wonder and part public resource. You use the car only when you need it - parking it for the next customer's use in a stack, against other cars, thus using a minimum of public space. The exhibition features models and prototypes of the CityCar, as well as a video game simulation that shows users how the steering mechanism in the city car will work. MIT graduate students at the Media Laboratory created much of the exhibit which aims to show not just the CityCar concept but also the evolution of an idea, how it is modeled and then put into practice.

Zebrafish as a Model for Cancer Research

Set in the middle of the Mark Epstein Innovation Gallery visitors will find a large aquarium filled with zebrafish bred from the collection that MIT scientists used for the study of cancer. Visitors have the opportunity to watch interactive videos of researchers in the lab of Nancy Hopkins and to see for themselves how fish are used in research by examining the differences between diseased and normal cell tissues.

MIT and the Sea: Pioneers in Ocean Exploration

Throughout the 20th and 21st centuries, MIT's engineers and oceanographers have worked together to create technologies that have explored the deep ocean environment. This unique multimedia exhibition showcases MIT engineers and the roles they have played developing tethered, undersea robots called remotely operated vehicles which have been used for ocean exploration, national security and offshore energy production.

Claude Shannon's Ingenious Machines

The first artificial intelligence mouse to navigate a maze, and a mechanical W.C. Fields, are among the whimsical devices and inventions created by the late MIT professor Claude Shannon, "the father of digital communications and information theory." They recently joined the MIT Museum's collection of historical artifacts and are on display in the Innovation Gallery. You can also view them online at the museum's online collections catalog.