This SlideShowPro photo gallery requires the Flash Player plugin and a web browser with JavaScript enabled.
Courtesy of Patrick Gillooly/MIT News
Dave McOwen
Sep 13 2010
Coffee Talk
Posted in: Miscellaneous
One of the things I truly love about MIT is that you never know when you'll learn, stumble-upon and/or be run over by something new. While waiting in line for some iced tea this morning the two architecture students behind me were discussing their current fabrication project involving modular design, scalability and the potential and weaknesses of incorporating transparent concrete.
Wait, what?
So apparently there is something called transparent concrete. It's really only semi-transparent (for now) but it still reminded me about how much innovation there is in an essentially millennia-old technology.
MIT is in on the concrete re-imagining, too. Professors Ulm and Vandamme have shown how to slow concrete creep, the time-dependent deformation that occurs in concrete when it is subjected to load and which eventually causes it to fail. Based on their findings, creep could be reduced to the point where concrete could last for hundreds or perhaps thousands of years, rather than the... read the post »
Sep 10 2010
Opera
Posted in: Miscellaneous
One of my housemates here in Boston is a grad student at the MIT Media Lab, which is great for me because it gives me an excuse to go visit what I brazenly call The Birthplace of All Things Good and Awesome (I'm working on a shorter, catchier title).
Aside from the brilliantly practical solutions, inspiring innovations, and the mind-blowing leaps I only dimly grasp, I've been following the Opera of the Future project with growing anticipation. If you're unfamiliar with the decade-long project, let me sum it up for you:
Opera + Robots = WIN.
Okay so it's a lot more complicated than that, blending human performances with a sprawling, robot-controlled set in a "disembodied performance" that integrates with and enhances the living performers rather than overshadowing. It's the vision of Media Lab Professor Tod Machover, who has already done groundbreaking work developing a new generation of digitally integrated musical instruments.
But hey, why don't I let Professor Machover speak... read the post »
Sep 1 2010
Orientation
Posted in: Miscellaneous
Wondering what our new freshman are up to this week (aside from the usual East Campus shenanigans)?
Aug 26 2010
(un)Empty Nest
Posted in: Miscellaneous
There are no undergraduate classes here at MIT over the summer. Hopefully you already knew that, or at the very least figured it out from all the great summer blog posts. MIT encourages students to do research, travel, do service work, or just recharge and have some fun.
While that’s a great opportunity for you, it does make things much quieter on the old homestead. It’s not a complete “Night of the Comet” (or “28 Days Later” for those sadly uneducated in the ways of cheesy ‘80s movies) because there are research opportunities year-round, and we get to meet several thousand prospective students in our Info Sessions. Still, the campus doesn’t vibrate with the same lightning-in-a-bottle energy.
All that is starting to change. Shhhh, listen! Put your ear to your favorite graphing calculator or Petri dish* and you can hear the distant sounds of life returning to the Infinite. The new pre-frosh, sans pre, are arriving on campus!
* On second thought, that second one is probably a bad... read the post »
May 16 2010
Engineers Assemble!
Posted in: Miscellaneous
Remember last week when US Representative Ed Markey criticized BP's golf ball plan to stop the oil leak off the coast of Louisiana? He said, "When we heard the best minds were on the case, we expected MIT, not the PGA."
Well apparently that's exactly what President Obama had in mind, too. The President has directed Energy Secretary Steven Chu to provide assistance. Chu, in turn, has assembled a team of five “extraordinarily intelligent” scientists to provide solutions to the oil leak, and Alexander Slocum, MIT Professor of Mechanical Engineering (and 2.007 Design and Manufacturing guru), is among those selected for the job.
You can read more at Business Week.
I think Viggo Mortensen should play him in the inevitable Jon Farvreau summer movie blockbuster.