In the spring semester, your Terrascope experience expands to include two new themes: communicating with non-experts, and the design and construction of an intricate, complex physical structure. Working with teammates, you will design, engineer and fabricate a set of interactive museum exhibits to teach the general public about the issues you have been exploring throughout the year. You will install these in a high-traffic area of the MIT campus, and they will remain open for several weeks. Some of them may then go on to other, more permanent installations elsewhere. (In one previous year, for example, student exhibits served as the basis for a key exhibition at a major West Coast institution.) As in all of Terrascope, the focus is on working in teams to accomplish challenging tasks, and you and your teammates will have great freedom to determine the scope, emphasis and content of your work.

Why Museum Exhibits?
A museum exhibit is a unique combination of engineering and communication. At the core of the exhibit are the ideas and concepts you are trying to communicate, but in order to get those ideas across in a way that creates a lasting change in your visitors’ knowledge and understanding, you must develop exciting and interesting interactive components, design them creatively, and fabricate them well. For most Terrascopers, this is their first chance to participate in a thorough engineering/design process that leads to a lasting physical product. Along the way you will learn crucial techniques in brainstorming, design development, prototyping, and construction. You will also become very familiar with the use of power tools and the physical properties of certain construction materials. (But don’t worry if you are not an expert tool-user yet; many Terrascopers come to the program never having used power tools at all, and by the end of the year they are skilled and confident.)

1.016 and the Spring Break field experience
The spring field trip is a unique experience, and it touches on all aspects of the Terrascope year, including the academic subjects 12.000 (Mission) and 1.016. For 1.016, the trip takes place just as students are developing their final exhibit proposals and beginning to collect materials for their exhibits. Many teams find that their final designs are deeply inspired by the experiences they have on the field trip, and the exhibits are enriched by the photographs, audio, video and artifacts that Terrascopers bring home with them.

1.016 and Terrascope Radio
Students taking Subject SP.360, Terrascope Radio, also participate in 1.016, and many of them find that the sounds and interviews they collect can be incorporated directly into their exhibits. In previous years, for example, visitors to the 1.016 exhibits have heard the voices of: New Orleanians recounting their experiences during Hurricane Katrina and its aftermath; survivors of a major tsunami describing how their lives and physical environment were changed by the event; and fisherman and conservationists from the Galapagos discussing the pressures they face as tourism there grows. The combination of 1.016 and Terrascope Radio provides a unique chance for students to do work in one academic subject that directly complements the work they are doing in another.

More
To learn more about Subject 1.016, go to this year's class page.