Prof. Jeffrey Grossman speaks with NBC Boston’s Carla Rojo about his new class, “Coffee Matters: Using the Breakerspace to Make the Perfect Cup,” which explores the science behind the perfect cup of joe. The course combines chemistry and coffee science to provide students “a hands-on experience to fuel their curiosity.”
Boston Globe reporter Adelaide Parker spotlights “Coffee Matters: Using the Breakerspace to Make the Perfect Cup,” a new course Prof. Jeffrey Grossman brewed up to provide students a hands-on experience with materials science in action. “The role of understanding materials … is broader than just our department,” explains Grossman. “You need physics and biology and chemistry to understand materials and how to make them, and then all these other engineering disciplines to do the engineering.” He envisions the Department of Materials Science and Engineering’s new Breakerspace lab as somewhere students from all majors can “get excited about understanding materials.”
Researchers at MIT and elsewhere have developed a 3D printing method that allows “precise control over color, shade, texture, all with just a single material,” reports Vanesa Listek for 3Dprint.com. This technique “promises a faster and more sustainable solution than traditional approaches relying on multiple materials and nozzle changes,” explains Listek.
Researchers at MIT and elsewhere have developed “a new method of 3D printing that uses heat-responsive materials to print multi-color and multi-textured objects in one step,” reports Laura Griffiths for TCT Magazine. “The method has so far been tested using three heat-responsive filaments including a foaming polymer with particles that expand as they are heated, and wood and cork fiber-filled filaments,” explains Griffiths.
Students and instructors at MIT’s Hobby Shop created “Choo-Choo Chairs,” transforming decommissioned seats from the MBTA Red Line into new chairs, reports Matt Reed for WCVB. “Some people see the chair, and they know exactly where it came from and are very excited, like, ‘Where can I buy one,’” says Coby Unger, an associate instructor for the Hobby Shop.
Members of MIT’s Hobby Shop salvaged decommissioned MBTA Red Line seats and transformed them into “Choo-Choo Chairs,” reports Spencer Buell for The Boston Globe. The team “spiffed up seven of the old seats, mounting them onto wooden legs made out of reclaimed church pews,” writes Buell. “There’s so much nostalgia for that pattern,” said Coby Unger, an associate instructor at the Hobby Shop. “And the stainless steel construction is really beautiful.”
In this Washington Post article, reporter Chris Berdik spotlights assessment tools developed by MIT’s Playful Journey Lab to help educators track skills development in playful learning activities. “We want to support teachers who are fighting for these types of activities and future-ready skills,” explains research scientist YJ Kim.
WCVB-TV’s Mike Wankum visits the Edgerton Center’s Area 51 machine shop to see how MIT students are developing cutting-edge technologies such as solar-powered vehicles, electric racing cars and other innovative devices in a space that Wankum calls “classic MIT.” “It’s really cool,” says third-year student Serena Grown-Haeberl. “You get to see those math equations really come to life.”
Science reporter Philip Shapira highlights Prof. Neil Gershenfeld’s new book, co-written with his brothers, about digital fabrication. Shapira writes that the, “Gershenfelds engagingly alert us not only to the opportunities that digital fabrication presents but also to the societal and governance challenges that the widespread diffusion of this technology will generate.”
Writing for Make, Gareth Branwyn spotlights Adafruit Industries, which was founded by alumna Limor Fried. Fried explains that she believes the success of Adafruit is based on, “being focused on others, having an unconditional belief that you can be both a good cause and a good company, and seeing risk-taking as your friend and your only real competition as yourself.”
U.S. News & World Report’s Visi Tilak spotlights NuVu Studios, a school started by MIT graduates to create more hands-on learning experiences for middle and high school students. MIT alumna and NuVu co-founder Saba Ghole explains that students use “curiosity and creativity to explore new ideas, and make their concepts come to life.”
In this video, WCVB Chronicle host Anthony Everett visits Prof. Neil Gershenfeld at the Center for Bits and Atoms to learn about the global network of Fab Labs. Everett explains that Gershenfeld sees Fab Labs as places of “collaboration and networking and mentoring where ideas can literally take form. Where you don’t borrow, but make what you want.”
Forbes correspondent Hilary Brueck writes about Prof. Eric von Hippel’s research exploring the burgeoning maker movement in industrialized countries around the world. Von Hippel and his colleagues found that “5.2% of adult consumers are developing products for their own use – that’s 16 million people making new or modified products the rest of the country has never seen.”
Boston Globe reporter Cristela Guerra writes that Profs. Janet Conrad and Lindley Winslow helped ensure the science in the new “Ghostbusters” was as accurate as possible. “I am very fond of the original ‘Ghostbusters’,” says Conrad. “I have even used ‘Ghostbusters’ as a theme for my colloquium on neutrino physics, since neutrinos are often called the ghost particle.”