Design

Seoul Architecture and Urbanism Biennale attendees interact with the "Sit(e)lines of a Garden City" installation on the port city of Haifa, Israel.

MIT researchers examine cities worldwide for 2019 Seoul Architecture and Urbanism Biennale

Transportation, communication, development, and social interaction are explored through the lens of the urban.

December 11, 2019

An MIT-invented circuit uses only a nanometer-wide “magnetic domain wall” to modulate the phase and magnitude of a spin wave, which could enable practical magnetic-based computing — using little to no electricity.

Toward more efficient computing, with magnetic waves

Circuit design offers a path to “spintronic” devices that use little electricity and generate practically no heat.

November 28, 2019

Rodrigo Vasquez examines his team's final project, a plane that also acts a boat on water.

First-years learn fundamental principles by creating

Course 2.00a (Fundamentals of Engineering Design: Explore Space, Sea and Earth) empowers first-year students to build machines early in their academic careers.

November 27, 2019

Zach Lieberman joins MIT Media Lab

New adjunct associate professor combines fine arts and coding.

November 25, 2019

Star City, a concept for a human city on Mars, won first place at the Mars Colony Prize Design contest. The design, led by MIT PhD student George Lordos and his brother Alexandros, features five villages constructed around a crater rim.

Interdisciplinary team takes top prize in Mars colony design competition

MIT PhD student George Lordos and his brother Alexandros led the project; goal of the Mars Society competition was to establish a colony on Mars for 1,000 residents.

November 25, 2019

An MIT-invented model efficiently and simultaneously optimizes control and design of soft robots for target tasks, which has traditionally been a monumental undertaking in computation. The model, for instance, was significantly faster and more accurate than state-of-the-art methods at simulating how quadrupedal robots (pictured) should move to reach target destinations.

How to design and control robots with stretchy, flexible bodies

Optimizing soft robots to perform specific tasks is a huge computational problem, but a new model can help.

November 22, 2019

Bryan Reimer, an AgeLab research scientist and the associate director of the New England University Transportation Center, was honored for his work developing a better understanding of how people engage with vehicle automation.

Bryan Reimer receives human factors innovator award

MIT AgeLab research engineer directs a team that studies in-vehicle automation, robotics, AI, and the mechanics of driver attention, among other topics.

October 30, 2019

“We’d like to have an impact with the course on the greater debate about the use of nuclear energy as part of the solution for climate change,” says Professor Jacopo Buongiorno.

Enhanced nuclear energy online class aims to inform and inspire

Revamped version of MITx MOOC includes new modules on nuclear security, nuclear proliferation, and quantum engineering.

October 24, 2019

Senior Danielle Gleason (right) speaks with Goretti Ariago (center) and Salume Awiyo (left), employees of Appropriate Energy Saving Technologies, in Soroti, Uganda. Gleason has made two trips to Uganda to help streamline the production of charcoal briquettes which offer a low-smoke alternative for home cooking fuel.

Scaling up a cleaner-burning alternative for cookstoves

Mechanical engineering students in MIT D-Lab are working with collaborators in Uganda on a solution for the health hazards associated with wood-burning stoves.

October 22, 2019

Woodie Flowers, Pappalardo Professor Emeritus of Mechanical Engineering

Professor Emeritus Woodie Flowers, innovator in design and engineering education, dies at 75

Beloved teacher and pioneer in hands-on engineering education developed design and robotics competitions at MIT, FIRST, and beyond, while promoting his concept of “gracious professionalism.”

October 14, 2019