Day in the Life of a MIT Mechanical Engineering UROP Student by Kayode D. '27

One of the coolest things at MIT is how easily undergrads can join research through UROPs (Undergraduate Research Opportunities Program). I did my first one this past semester and finished it over the summer, working in Professor David Wallace’s lab. Alongside a grad student named Chuck, I helped design underwater robots for students at a university in Portugal. Here’s a quick look at some highlights from the project—and what a random day⁠01 One of the most eventful days of the UROP, haha might’ve looked like!

The biggest challenge in this was that they did not have the labs and equipment we have, so if it breaks it needs to be repairable with Home Depot parts. 

 

9:38 – Wake up really late because my alarm didn’t go off. 

This summer, I’m staying at ET, an off-campus fraternity. What’s really interesting is that while everyone has a room to put their stuff in, almost no one sleeps in them. Instead, everyone sleeps on the third floor of the house, in a giant room with bunk beds like at a summer camp. It is kept dark and quiet 24/7 to not disturb anyone’s sleeping, and we use vibrating alarm clocks to wake up. I unfortunately set mine incorrectly and did not wake up on time. Whoops.

10:00 – I BlueBike over to MIT Campus

As MIT students, we get a discount on the Boston bike share system, called BlueBikes. For $50 a year, you get unlimited rides on the bikes around Boston and Cambridge. This is an absolute STEAL for when the T doesn’t go where you need and you don’t have a car. [Having a car on campus is pretty impractical unless you’ve got a frat parking spot. Otherwise, parking is expensive and unnecessary most things you need are within walking/biking/train distance.]

 

10:30 – Meet up with my advisor, Chuck. 

 

We met in Cadlab, one of the MIT Lab spaces on campus. If you can call it a “lab.” It’s more of an ideas space? I’ve met some really cool grad students working on some super⁠02 Katana F. '23 MEng '25 was working to turn her 2.009 project, a sea turtle egg incubator, to be more affordable and implementable in target countries. Made out of a big ol trashcan! interesting⁠03 Another grad student was working to make a more discreet and manageable ostomy pouch for people with certain cancers, diseases or injuries. Incredibly impactful and meaningful work. projects⁠04 Another grad student was doing a project where--i kid you not--they gave an ipad to a monkey to see how well it could play games. And then compared that to a marmoset and other animals on their own ipads.

When I met with Chuck, we talked about an ongoing issue with the ROV—that’s a Remotely Operated Vehicle, basically an underwater robot controlled by a person at the surface. Most of my work for this UROP has focused on designing and building these ROVs.

Here’s the problems we were having: 

When the ROV propels forward, a torque is put on the system causing it to flip over and drift upwards. My first idea didn’t work the way I expected it to, and we still wanted to do something to counteract the torque. So what did I do? 

 

11:00 – I HIT THE BOOKS!!!

I went to Barker Library to research ROVs and how designers counteract this problem. Most ROVs have the motors places in line with the COM, so they don’t really have this problem. 

Thinking back, I remembered a lecture from last semester’s 2.007 class, Design and Manufacturing. Professor Amos Winter talked about how he designed a new fan blade for XYZ company when he was younger. He had no clue how fan blades worked, but he knew he could research airplane wings, and that led him to his design that increased air flow by a good amount!

I had tried this approach, researching how tail wings on an airplane and rudders on big ships work:

 

So I researched how they worked and made a design for new “wings” to add to the robot. 

From this and measurements of the ROV, I was able to make a design for the rudders [which I drew onto the sheet metal and is now on the robots halfway across the world. Sorry I didn’t take a picture…].

 

12:30 – Lunch at Chipotle

Unfortunately, there isn’t a lot of food on campus during the summer. You have to walk a little ways out to the Chipotle by Kendall Square, or Roxy’s Grilled Cheese⁠05 Roxy’s has really good grilled cheese, but there is a backroom that’s roped off and only open at tonight to people over 21. Every time we walk past it at night, we wonder what’s in the backroom of Roxy’s. None of us really want to go, but we are curious what’s so special back there. Probably alcohol. Or pictures of boobies on the arcade machines. Yikes! up Mass Ave. 

I ran into my friend, Isa J. ‘27, at Chipotle. I don’t remember what we talked about, it was a month ago. I think we talked about having a bonfire⁠06 I LOVE BONFIRES. Like a moth to a flame, I… go to a bonfire. I love the smores and the lawn chairs, and the playing frisbee, and the guy who’s self appointed job is to put more wood into the fire when the wood gets too burnt up. Big Bonfire Fan. One time in high school, me and some guys met up for a bonfire and my friend brought a box with everything his ex girlfriend had ever given him. He wanted to burn all of it. And he did. When the flames turned blue, one guy asked him what could be causing it. He responded “Probably the Batteries.” We all freaked out. Good times. with whoever was still on campus at some point. It never happened.⁠07 I did go to a bonfire, for a Boston Cru hangout. It was fun!

 

1:15 PM – Go to Pappalardo to make part

Pappalardo is one of the biggest Mechanical Engineering makerspaces on campus, and it’s where 2.007 is held in the spring semesters. I’ve tried making sheet metal parts at other places on campus, but none come close to the speed at which I can iterate and create at Pappalardo. This is thanks to the three horsemen of my fabocalypse: The Shear, Break, and Punch.

Most makerspaces have bandsaws and drill presses for woodworking, but few are set up to cut sheet metal at the thickness I needed. But with these tools, you don’t even need electricity! It’s powered by sheer will…and the shear will, too!

 

2:00 PM – Time to test!

I met back up with Chuck at the Alumni Swimming pool to test out the ROV. 

 

The rudders work great! Yippee! 

 

4:00 – I clean up and go home!!

While I’m rinsing off the ROV, an older gentleman mentions to me that he used to do testing in the Alumni pool when he was an undergrad. I asked what he was testing. 

His name is Dave Schloerb. His senior thesis was designing a speaker to be used underwater by divers to communicate. He told me that it didn’t work perfectly and that the thesis likely does not exist online, so I probably couldn’t read it. It was a really interesting conversation, though. 

Later on, I looked him up online to see if I could find his work. 

 

Excuse me??? Dave Schloerb is the GOAT????

In 1974, Dave submitted an article to Skin Diver Magazine which you can read here. When he was in high school, he wanted to spend 24 hours at the bottom of the lake near his house. So with the help of a buddy, he constructed a two room base out of oil drums and scrap metal. Using a pump and hose to pipe water down to the base [dubbed “Julius”], he started his time spent in the murky depths. Read on to see how things turned out for our hero!

He went on to do projects for a diving company after college and came back to get a masters, continuing his pursuits with underwater engineering. Literally so cool.

… 

MIT is so cool. Like obviously it’s a cool place, but what CJ Q. ‘23 said is also true. The best part of MIT is the people. People here get curious about something and actually go build it, test it, break it, and try again. I don’t think I fully understood that in high school, but I’m glad I can be here now. And you don’t have to be creating underwater bunkers in high school to belong at a place like MIT, heck I was making board games out of cardboard in high school. But those sort of passions can be applied and reapplied to future ideas and pursuits, and it makes these super cool things. Whether it’s building a robot, designing an egg incubator out of a trash can, or figuring out how to wake up with a vibrating alarm, there’s room for all of it.

Maybe I’ll try to get coffee with Dave this fall. 

…

We also tested the robot in the Charles river later that week: 

As of right now, the ROVs are being used in Portugal in the program! I did not get to go on the trip [😔] but this experience was fun nevertheless! I will post pictures and videos whenever they are sent to me!