So I was looking through my camera tonight, and here's what I found:

It's Director of Financial Aid Daniel Barkowitz, holding up some fondue!

As his associate advisor for a group of six freshmen, I got to tag along to the end-of-year dinner at the Wine Cellar Restaurant, just across the Harvard Bridge from MIT. We had an exquisite dinner of cheese, meat, and chocolate fondue... paid for by the Office of Undergraduate Advising and Academic Programming. It was about $50/person!

(There were three types of fondue -- this one had cheddar in it, and there was another that had artichoke hearts and emmenthal.)

Kim Brink '10 is all dressed up for the occasion

The main course -- three or four different meats here ... lamb, shrimp, all raw... you cook it yourself on a skewer in a marinade, fondue-style. The sauces were excellent!

And then for dessert, we had hot chocolate fondue -- this one had caramel and almonds in it. Yeah, it was really good. Those fruits were skewered, dipped, and consumed in short order.

Back at East Campus, Cameron Lewis '07, an electrical engineering and computer science major, was preparing his final project for 6.115, the Microcomputer Project Laboratory. He's been building a spinning, multi-colored LED "sphere" from scratch -- that means designing the circuit board, machining the parts, drilling and threading the screw holes, and programming the controllers. It's been a huge part of his life for a month or two now!

Comments (Closed after 30 days to reduce spam)

How exciting!

Posted by: Melissa '11 (Wings) on May 18, 2007

Whoa thats a cool project! Wish you could do stuff like that in high school.

Posted by: Chessy on May 18, 2007

that fondue looks so yummy! i'm seriously looking forward to boston a lot because of the food!

cool project too! that's crazy. i can't imagine me building something like that. i guess that's something to look forward to when i get to MIT, huh?

Posted by: jenn '11 on May 18, 2007

It spins! Are the LEDs timed to display messages and stuff?

Posted by: Tung Shen '11 on May 18, 2007

Wonderful project! It's just sooooooooo awesome! Designing a circuit board from scratch!!!

Posted by: Basant'11 on May 18, 2007

Hey, I recognize Cameron -- he's the guy with the super neat room (one of just two!) featured on East Campus's video. I'm awed by both his project and his level of fastidiousness.

Posted by: anon.again on May 18, 2007

Haha, I recognize that "shit" poster in the background.

Posted by: Hank R. on May 18, 2007

OOO Fondue! RAW Meat! Flashing Lights! O so intensely fascinating...haha PEACE!

Posted by: Hunter R. on May 18, 2007

I love the plethora of monitors, MIT-style. =)

Posted by: PPC on May 18, 2007

Ha, something this cool only at MIT

Posted by: JamesM on May 19, 2007

i just lol'ed at the poster in the background of the last picture, very nice haha

Posted by: Jon on May 19, 2007

this can't be true... i know most of this 6.115 stuff and i'll be learning the rest and much more next year at school :S for the past few weeks we have been learning the structure of 8bit microprocessors and structure of microcomputers in my digital electronics class and we'll have a chance to actually work with them next year in automatic process management class. i don't say this often, but i love my school :D maybe MIT won't be as hard as i thought...
btw i'm quite sure that all those microcontrollers were quite unnecessary

Posted by: Sh1fty on May 19, 2007

Darn! Daniel has stepped it up a notch as a freshman advisor with the cheese fondue thing. I feel like my poor advisees deserved something better than the last trip to Toscanini's we had last week. But we did spend our budget a few months back on an excellent Tunisian restaurant called "Baraka Cafe," which was recommended to me by Matt McGann. All of the Class of 2011's should definitely check out Baraka Cafe and the Wine Cellar Restaurant when you get to campus!

Posted by: Amy Perez on May 19, 2007

Wow! Daniel has stepped it up a notch as a freshman advisor with the cheese fondue thing. I feel like my poor advisees deserved something better than the last trip to Toscanini's we had last week. But we did spend our budget a few months back on an excellent Tunisian restaurant called "Baraka Cafe," which was recommended to me by Matt McGann. All of the Class of 2011's should definitely check out Baraka Cafe and the Wine Cellar Restaurant when you get to campus!

Posted by: Amy Perez on May 19, 2007

Hi dude.

Look....
I wanna know how to get an admission into MIT.
I'm an Indian, currently in 12th grade(dunno if you have that sytem there). It's after 12th here that one can go to a secondary level Educational Institute. (I'm 17). Tell me about the exams and all. Please dude, I need to know.

Thanx

Posted by: Utkarsh Singh on May 20, 2007

Shifty, how could this be done without a microcomputer? unless you mean that a small micro should be used and not the big board
in any case it is a 6.115 rule that the software has to be programmed in 8051 assembly language

Posted by: hawk on May 20, 2007

i assume that this sphere is supposed to have like 4 blinking modes and that's why there are 4 micros, right? so i'd remove the micros completely and make the modes manually with basic logic functions and an NE555 connected as an astable multivibrator(clock). you probably wouldn't pass 6.115 with that because 6.115 is all about micros, but if someone wants to make a spere for home usage it's much cheaper to use like 5-6 normal ICs wich cost under $0.5 each

Posted by: Sh1fty on May 20, 2007

oh, i just now realised that you've used a microcomputer and not microcontrollers :S i'm still quite sure that it can be done without expensive ICs could you tell me what exactly is it supposed to do so that i don't have to make any more bad assumptions?

Posted by: Sh1fty on May 20, 2007

Basant please contact me. I am from Patna.

Posted by: Vikramaditya Bhardwaj on May 24, 2007

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