So all freshmen are assigned to a faculty advisor who helps them make decisions about choosing classes. Each faculty advisor comes with an associate advisor, which is an upperclassman who acts as a something of a mentor to all the innocnet and clueless froshies. This convenient relationship sometimes takes place in the form of an advising seminar, where 7 or 8 innocent and clueless froshies bond together over an interesting but random seminar topic.
My advising seminar is called "Designing Kids Technologies," and it takes places in E15-001, aka The Lego Learning Laboratory.
E15-001 is officially the single coolest room I've ever seen. It's so cool, that I've decided to devote an entire entry to it.
First things first. This is what you seen as soon as you walk into the Media Lab, building E15:
Maybe I'm just weird, but I think that wall looks really cool.
As you descend to E15-001:
(if you haven't figured out the number system yet, E15 signifies the building, the first digit indicates the floor (the basement, in this case), and the last two digits give the room number)
Ok I'm done making you look at walls. We'll graduate from walls to doors. Here is the first glimpse you get of the Lego Learning Lab:
And now the fun begins...
If you walk through the door and look to your right, you see
a quite impressive Lego collection. (Oh, and that red thing that's cut off to the left of the photo- that's a phone booth. For serious.)
If you walk through the door and look to your left, you see....
Yes. Yes, that is in fact what you think it is. A monkey made entirely out of Legos.
You know, you can get a UROP here? I mean c'mon, who wouldn't want to work here? There's a disco ball made out of CDs and everything!
And hey, even the stairs are cool:
That concludes our completely superficial tour of the Lego Learning Lab (the people who brought you Lego Mindstorms) in the Media Center (the people who brought you the Jerk-o-Meter).
Check back later for some (hopefully cool) information about what actually happens in there.
I've found that it's sometimes easy to forget that this place is actually a school....
Comments (Closed after 30 days to reduce spam)
Posted by: Kate on September 6, 2005
Posted by: Venkatesh on September 6, 2005
Posted by: Jessie on September 7, 2005
Title: Circuit design for an electronic toolkit for interactive toys.
We are working on a new electronics toolkit that will enable novices to build their own interactive toys. We are looking for a creative and enthusiastic UROP (Junior or Senior) with experience in circuit design, such as 6.002, and similar lab work.
If you are interested, please send an email to Oren Zuckerman (orenz@media.mit.edu) with an overview of your electronics experience and a short description of why you are interested in working on this project.
best,
Oren
Posted by: Oren on September 7, 2005
Love ya,
Aunt Mar
Posted by: AnteM on September 8, 2005
I liked this particular entry because it reminded me of my childhood. I played with Legos all the time. The Lego Lab and Media Lab look awesome.
I was wondering if you could tell me what other projects are being developed at the Media Lab because I'm particularly interested in it!
Posted by: Emi on September 20, 2005
Posted by: Cesar on October 6, 2005
Posted by: Mal on March 7, 2006
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