Mechanical Engineering

Keynote speaker George Hawkins, CEO and general manager of DC Water, presents at the fifth annual MIT Water Summit, hosted by the MIT Water Club.

Students, academics, and entrepreneurs join forces to tackle the future of water utilities

Fifth annual MIT Water Summit brings together interdisciplinary panelists to give multiple perspectives on major issues surrounding the water sector.

December 21, 2016

New MIT research could offer a way of making tiny movable parts with no solid connections between the pieces, potentially eliminating a major source of wear and failure in microelectromechanical machines. The new system uses a layer of liquid droplets to support a tiny, movable platform.

Movable microplatform floats on a sea of droplets

New technique offers precise, durable control over tiny mirrors or stages.

December 16, 2016

“Say there are toxic gases leaking in a building, and you need to close a valve inside, but it’s dangerous to send people in,” says Sangbae Kim, associate professor of mechanical engineering at MIT. “Now, there is no single robot that can do this kind of job. I want to create a robotic first responder that can potentially do more than a human and help in our lives.”

Taking a leap in bioinspired robotics

Mechanical engineer Sangbae Kim builds animal-like machines for use in disaster response.

December 16, 2016

Now in its 21st year, the “product engineering processes” class led by David Wallace is designed to give its students a strong sense of what’s involved in taking a product all the way from brainstorming ideas, through preliminary design and testing, to a final, fully functional product design and a basic business plan.

Student product ideas range from lifesaving to just plain fun

Finale of mechanical engineering class unveils wide variety of ingenious new product concepts.

December 13, 2016

Ahmed Ghoniem and graduate students (left); Katherine Kellogg and graduate students

Professors Ghoniem and Kellogg honored as Committed to Caring

These generous professors put students first, support in both large and small ways.

December 12, 2016

MIT researchers have fabricated a stamp made from forests of carbon nanotubes that is able to print electronic inks onto rigid and flexible surfaces.

Printable electronics

New stamping technique creates functional features at nanoscale dimensions.

December 7, 2016

Clockwise from top left: Alix de Monts ’14, senior Anita Liu, senior Melody Liu, and senior Lisa Ho have been selected as Schwarzman Scholars.

Four MIT students named 2017 Schwarzman Scholars

Alix de Monts, Lisa Ho, Anita Liu, and Melody Liu will study for one year at Tsinghua University in China.

December 2, 2016

Maker mentor Alisha Schor, second from left, teaches students on the use of equipment in the MIT MakerWorkshop.

A community of making

Academics from around the country gather to discuss makerspaces.

December 1, 2016

MIT senior Brian Wanek wears a racing helmet inside a prototype of what will be the driver’s seat in the 2017 MIT Formula SAE car as sophomore Wasay Anwer measures the frame.

Harder, better, faster, stronger

The MIT Formula SAE team takes a great leap forward to build their 2017 race car.

November 29, 2016

This image shows the fabrication steps from raw circular filament to a fully functional bending artificial muscle. The bottom filament is a raw circular filament. Researchers press the filament using a rolling mill (the second sample from the bottom). Next, they add a mask in the middle of the surface (the third sample from the bottom). Then, they add the conductive ink (the second sample from the...

Nylon fibers made to flex like muscles

MIT engineers find a simple and inexpensive new approach to creating bending artificial muscle fibers.

November 23, 2016

PhD candidate Emily Tow (left) and postdoc David Warsinger co-led a study proposing new designs for reverse osmosis desalination that significantly exceed the energy efficiency of state-of-the-art techniques. An experimental prototype is behind them.

Batch desalination configuration bests standard reverse osmosis approach

Researchers develop a new way to create more clean water with less energy, thanks to clever timing.

November 18, 2016

Stephen Connors, leading alternative energy researcher, dies at 58

MIT researcher helped to make solar and wind power mainstream.

November 18, 2016

Common Sensing co-founders Richard Whalley (left) and James White

Data-driven diabetes management

Smart insulin-pen cap lets patients and doctors track dosage data to better manage treatment.

November 16, 2016

Engineers at MIT can now predict a liquid’s droplet size distribution, including the likelihood of producing very big and very small droplets, based on one main property: the liquid’s viscoelasticity, or stickiness.

Spray tuning

New method determines distribution of droplet sizes for wide range of sticky fluids.

November 9, 2016

Ruo-Qian Wang (left) worked with engineers at Jain Irrigation Systems in Jalgaon, India, to understand the design requirements for high-efficiency irrigation technology.

Re-engineering the sprinkler

New MIT research on the flow of water in flexible tubes could make irrigation technology more sustainable and cost-effective.