Mechanical engineering

April 12 symposium: Take an immersive, intellectual journey across campus

Beyond 2016: MIT’s Frontiers of the Future event offers a playful introduction to research at MIT.

April 5, 2016

The team was initially inspired by videos of chocolatiers making bonbons and other chocolate shells. Pedro Reis and his team wondered whether there was a way to precisely predict the final thickness of chocolate and other shells that start out as a liquid film.

How crispy is your bonbon?

New theory, inspired by chocolate coatings, predicts thickness of thin shells.

April 4, 2016

This illustration depicts a possible configuration for the combined system proposed by MIT researchers. At the bottom, steam (pink arrows) passes through pulverized coal, releasing gaseous fuel (red arrows) made up of hydrogen and carbon monoxide. This fuel goes into a solid oxide fuel cell (disks near top), where it reacts with oxygen from the air (blue arrows) to produce electricity (loop at rig...

Hybrid system could cut coal-plant emissions in half

Combining gasification with fuel-cell technology could boost efficiency of coal-powered plants.

April 4, 2016

“Most people in my family who go abroad just go for graduate school; no one goes as a 17-year-old,” Amna Magzoub says. “I had to convince a lot of people that it was really worth it.”

In search of a major she loves

Senior Amna Magzoub finds her niche in mechanical engineering, plans to bring skills home to Sudan.

March 30, 2016

A new mechanism for catalyzing the splitting of water

Researchers make an important step toward widespread adoption of water splitting to produce hydrogen fuel, an attractive alternative to fossil fuels.

March 29, 2016

The nuTonomy team, including Emilio Frazzoli (third from left, standing), with one of their driverless cars

Startup bringing driverless taxi service to Singapore

Fleet of autonomous vehicles will serve as convenient form of public transit while reducing emissions.

March 24, 2016

Students receive instructions from Amy Fitzgerald (right), outreach program coordinator at the MIT Edgerton Center, while Isabelle Pisini (left) translates the directions to American Sign Language.

Students from the Beverly School for the Deaf visit the Edgerton Center

At the Edgerton Center, students learn engineering principles through Lego kits.

March 23, 2016

Researchers used the spin of light to guide the flow of optical information. Shining right-circularly polarized light on nanoribbons made of special 2-D materials enables light to flow forward on one edge and backward on the other edge. Changing the polarization of the light causes the guided modes to reverse directions.

New way to control particle motions on 2-D materials

Study points the way to new photonic devices with one-way traffic lanes.

March 21, 2016

(From left) Randall Briggs, Ike Feitler, Jonathan Hunt, Martin Culpepper, and Saana McDaniel, creators of the Mobius app that helps students get access to workshops on campus.

Mobius App released to empower MIT maker community

Novel app will remove barriers to student making at MIT, impact universities around the world.

March 18, 2016

U.S. News gives top rankings to MIT graduate programs in engineering, business

MIT is home to No. 1 graduate engineering program; MIT Sloan is No. 5 business school.

March 16, 2016

Artist interpretation of a cancer cell dividing

How cancer cells fuel their growth

Scientists surprised to find amino acids, not sugar, supply most building blocks for tumor cells.

March 7, 2016

Using acoustic data, researchers identified and mapped the calls of diverse marine mammal species in fish spawning grounds on Georges Bank, including (from top right, clockwise): blue (snout only is pictured), humpback, orca, fin, dolphin, sei, pilot, sperm, and minke.

Whales dine with their own kind

Mapping whale calls, researchers find the predators feed in species-specific hotspots.

March 2, 2016

“These waves really talk to each other,” Themis Sapsis says. “They interact and exchange energy. It’s not just bad luck. It’s the dynamics that create this phenomenon.”

Rogue wave ahead

New prediction tool gives 2-3 minute warning of incoming rogue waves.

February 25, 2016

MIT faculty recipients of the 2016 Presidential Early Career Awards for Scientists and Engineers are: (clockwise from top left) Kay Tye, Cullen Buie, Tonio Buonassisi, and William Tisdale.

Four MIT faculty win Presidential Early Career Awards

Buie, Buonassisi, Tisdale, and Tye honored with the U.S. government's highest award for young scientists and engineers.

February 19, 2016

An artist’s rendition of DNA entering bacteria.

Breaking through the bacteria barrier

New microfluidic device may speed up DNA insertion in bacteria, the first step in genetic engineering.