Design

Students with toys: Not just playing aroundIn mechanical engineering department’s toy-design class, teams design creative board games, plush toys and puzzles.

Reducing wasted energy in commercial buildingsMuch energy is wasted heating and cooling indoor spaces when no one or almost no one is present. Now, MIT researchers have used their own campus to demonstrate a means of measuring that energy/occupancy mismatch.

Buongiorno and McKrell awarded more than $400,000 by CEA, FranceThe researchers will investigate transient boiling heat transfer phenomena under rapidly escalating heat fluxes.

Michael Short spans classroom, forge, reactor

Imaginary Beings: Mythologies of the Not YetNeri Oxman at the Centre Pompidou

Designing with damaged landA citizens’ guide to reclaiming abandoned mine sites ecologically

Researchers engineer light-activated skeletal muscleTechnique may enable robotic animals that move with the strength and flexibility of their living counterparts.

Better product design through a simple square chartHow Design Structure Matrix analysis has helped heavyweight companies improve their products, production lines and organizations.

Bits of buildings: How is computing changing the architect’s job?In a new book, an MIT researcher looks at the influence of high-tech simulations on the profession of architecture.

ARTEMiS brings art to teaching of science and engineering conceptsART for Engineering, Mathematics, and Science an initiative launched last summer through MIT’s Office of Educational Innovation and Technology (OEIT).

A design to save American citiesIn new book, urban studies professor Brent Ryan says shrinking American cities should stop emulating the suburbs and start supporting creative rebuilding ideas.

Reinventing planned citiesRethinking '50s era ‘new towns’

Entrepreneurial students dive into product design and developmentJoint MIT-RISD course yields concepts from iPad-friendly backpacks to waste-free sugar.

Game theory, in the real worldMIT economist Parag Pathak engineers practical solutions to complicated education problems.

Simulating tomorrow’s chipsA new system makes hardware models of multicore chips more efficient, easier to design and more reliable.

Chips as mini InternetsThe data-routing techniques that undergird the Internet could increase the efficiency of multicore chips while lowering their power requirements.

Redesigned with you in mind: IS&T unveils its responsive website

Lots of troubleIn a new book, an MIT urban planner rethinks the mundane, ubiquitous parking lot.

Testing unbuilt chipsA new software-simulation system promises much more accurate evaluation of promising — but potentially fault-ridden — multicore-chip designs.

A true bargain houseFirst prototype built from MIT’s effort to construct houses for $1,000 each.

MIT Press announces first book in new Engineering Systems Book SeriesFlexibility in Engineering Design by Richard de Neufville and Stefan Scholtes now available.