MARC 2025 (not a live blog) by Anika H. '26
Featuring Andi '25!
MARC is one of the few conferences people have in their academic career where you should absolutely go whether you consider your research good or not. Because for good food, new friends, subsidized ski trips, and a stay at a luxury hotel that looks like the one from The Shining, why would you not go?
If you haven’t yet read either of Andi ’25’s blogs on MARC, it’s MIT’s Microsystems Annual Research Conference where we present all of our really cool research to the big industry sponsors funding us. And so, MIT tries to get as many researchers as possible to come to this by bribing us with things we would otherwise not be able to afford with the average broke-college-student budget.
Andi and I were both on Bus 3, so I sat next to him and we yapped incessantly about research and pigeons until we got to the ski site.
i drew this on my phone
Skiing!
I missed the signup for downhill skiing, so I went cross country skiing instead. Unlike my research supervisor (Hans), I didn’t know how to ski, so I ended up slowing him down a whole lot. Skate skis are a lot easier to learn since they’re similar to ice skating where you push to the side, but it was also a lot more annoying in the beginning because it felt like I was wearing very long clown shoes.
Hans was not anticipating winter activities and ended up cross country skiing with a coat over his formalwear, so I couldn’t really pelt him with snowballs. The trails themselves were quite fun with a lot of uphill and downhill sections. We started with a couple wrong turns, but managed to get back in time within the last hour. At the end, after poking several trees and falling several times, I walked back into the ski rental lodge lobby with snow in my boots and icicles in my hair, grinning as I lied about getting the hang of things. I don’t think I wiped out as bad as Andi did, but I was flopping around quite a bit in the beginning.
Figure 1: Experimentation
Figure 2: Results
Indoor Time
When we were waiting for hotel check in to start, I got to see my grad student friends (Daniel and Ben) getting worked like hounds to finish an IC (integrated circuit) tape out before the deadline which just so happened to be the first day of MARC. While Hans took a nap and I wandered around the basement, the two posted up in the business room with their eyes glued to their laptops. I think they went straight to sleep after they finished. During one of the social hours, I found a bunch of my fellow undergrads, many of whom were here to present their final projects from the nano fabrication class (6.254). We quickly became friends from talking throughout the day.
At dinner, our table name for trivia was “The Kids Table (+Hans) (+Dohyun)”. While Andi seemed to be diligently take notes on the panel happening afterwards, I went back to my room to take a fat nap, having only gotten 4 hours of sleep the previous night. I hauled my butt up in time for the group photo, but I’m pretty sure I sneezed as the camera flashed the first time.
I played poker with Kat in the evening. Through her prowess in social deception, a keen eye, and a pure skill, Kat ended up with the dragon’s hoard of wealth by the end of the game.
Nope, just kidding. None of us knew how to play poker so we all got kicked to the noob table. We didn’t really get to bluff or anything since we were all showing our hands to the dealer and he would tell us out loud “you can still stay in the game, put 200 in”, or “you got a crap load of nothin’!” And tell us to fold. He took pity on the losers and tossed us extra chips to keep playing if we ran low. For the last round, everyone went all in, and Kat won the whole pot with all 4 aces.
We roasted marshmallows in the fire pit outside until we all got too cold. As we were walking back to our hotel rooms, I was giving out some terrible advice as a joke and was heard very clearly and very out of context by Dohyun when he passed us in the hall. I think what we said is a little heinous for the blogs, judging by the expression he had on his face.
Day 2: Pitches and Posters
I only managed to sit through about 10 minutes of the keynote speakers before deciding it was far more interesting to go frolic in the snow. I don’t particularly enjoy listening to talks about AI or startups, but that’s just me.
it’s tim!
I didn’t do the pitch because I wasn’t too sure on what the vibes were when the signups opened, but it was a lot more casual than I expected. Each pitch is 60 seconds long, and they honk a rubber chicken at you if you go overtime. The ones presented were all interesting, with some people cracking jokes and even singing. Some of my friends did a pitch together about the supercapacitor they made for their final project in the nano fab class and did an amazing job with the energy they brought on stage. Everyone voted for their favorite pitches, and they were one of five groups that won! I’m fairly certain people all voted for the pitches with the most whimsy.
the dream team! frank, emillia, and kenneth from left to right
I made up for the lack of public speaking with the poster session, because I got absolutely GRILLED. People were asking me question after question, and I could barely run away from my spot to look at other people’s research. I had to dig the depths of my brain to find details from papers I read months ago, and awkwardly point them to my references section whenever I wasn’t confident about what I said. I wasn’t sure whether I got so much interaction because people were genuinely interested in my research, or because I explained it in a confusing enough manner that people were just looking for clarification.
my research poster!
Yapping about magnetic resonance for an hour straight took a lot out of me, but I was free to look at everyone else’s groundbreaking research afterwards in everything from Lidar photonics to mini somersaulting robots. I got to talk to one researcher who was working 3D printed magnets, but was limited by the size and strength of the electromagnet used to magnetize them. Naturally, I offered to let her use the 6000 pound elevator-sinking electromagnet that I was using for my research too. As a side note, it did actually slowly sink the building 36 freight elevator, which is why we left it on the first floor instead of trying to put it into our lab on the 7th floor.
the giant elevator-sinking magnet in question
The food was really good. Aside from getting very fancy meals for dinner, breakfast, and lunch, we were basically fed every hour with cookies and refreshments in between. During the very last round of refreshments after the second poster session, I was delighted to find a jug of whole milk next to the half-and-half. Though I’m sure it was meant to be mixed with the coffee, I poured myself a full cup of milk since we were nearing the end of the conference anyway.
This was my very first research conference ever, and I couldn’t have imagined a better one.