In this Wired video, Prof. Anette “Peko” Hosoi explains how she and her team designed a material, inspired by semiaquatic mammals, to help keep surfers warm. “We want to understand the physical mechanisms behind the biological solution and then adapt those mechanisms into engineering design."
KQED reporter Queena Sook Kim highlights Code Next, a program created by researchers from the Media Lab and Google aimed at encouraging high school students to learn to code through the process of making. “Coding is also making, and it takes the same problem-solving skills as making stuff in real life,” Kim explains.
CBC reporter Nora Young explores how MIT researchers have developed a new material, inspired by beaver fur, that could help keep surfers warm. “In sports technology there's a great need for textiles that have great insulating properties in water, but still let you stay agile and nimble,” explains graduate student Alice Nasto.
CNN reporter Katie Pisa spotlights alumnus Obinna Ukwuani’s dedication to opening a STEM school in Nigeria. Ukwuani says he was inspired by his time in Nigeria after years of studying in the U.S. "In the U.S., if you work hard, you'll be fine in this life. So I had that moment where I knew I wanted to improve things in Nigeria."
Graduate student Alice Nasto speaks with Cynthia Graber of Scientific American about her research designing a material inspired by the fur that keeps beavers and sea otters warm. Nasto explains that the fur "evolved to trap air, and this air provides a layer of insulation for them in water.”
Researchers at the MIT Media Lab are joining forces with Google to create a program aimed at mentoring the next generation of African-American and Latino computer scientists in Oakland, California, reports Ethan Baron for The Mercury News.
Writing for Nature, Gary Stager spotlights the work of Prof. Seymour Papert, who dedicated his career to using technology to help children learn. Stager writes that Papert “built a bridge between progressive educational traditions and the Internet age to maintain the viability of schooling, and to ensure the democratization of powerful ideas.”
A study co-authored by Prof. Susan Silbey found that many women leave engineering because of sexism at school and in the workplace, writes Valentina Zarya for Fortune. The researchers found that “female engineers’ first substantive experiences with sexism occurred in school, with many women describing being treated differently by professors and classmates.”
Prof. S.P. Kothari writes for The Wall Street Journal that federal student loans should be increased for STEM students to help close the science, technology and engineering skills gap. “If the nation is serious about staying competitive in the global race for STEM talent, then targeting student loans is one solution that can and should earn bipartisan support.”
Writing for The Boston Globe, Vanessa Nason highlights how students from the Salem public schools participated in a competition to develop code for MIT-designed robots on the International Space Station. “The teams were tasked with solving a challenge developed by MIT students. They worked for five weeks coding small robots to perform maintenance functions on the ISS.”
Boston.com reporter Sanjay Salomon writes that high school students participating in MIT’s Beaver Works Summer Institute spent four weeks learning about the development of self-driving cars. The program culminated with students racing their miniature self-driving cars inside Walker Memorial. Parth Parekh, a 16-year-old student, said the program was both “very challenging and at the same time very fun.”
On August 5, high school students participating in the School of Engineering and Lincoln Lab’s Beaver Works Summer Institute competed in a grand prix for mini autonomous cars, reports Olivia Vanni for BostInno. “Their small self-driving cars not only had to prove fast, but they also had to withstand a course full of hairpin turns and other racing cars."
Washington Post reporter Emily Langer chronicles the life and work of Prof. Emeritus Seymour Papert, who died last week at age 88. Langer explains that Papert “led an early campaign to revolutionize education with the personal computer, a tool he championed not as a classroom gadget but as a key to unlocking a child’s excitement for learning.”
Barb Darrow writes for Fortune about the career of Prof. Emeritus Seymour Papert, who died July 31. “In the 1960s, when computers were pricey and huge, Papert saw them as a way to help children learn by doing. He developed the Logo programming language for children, who initially used it to program and animate a small robot turtle.”
Lisa Mullins of WBUR’s All Things Considered speaks with Suzanne Massie, wife of the late Prof. Emeritus Seymour Papert, about Papert’s dedication to using technology to provide children around the world access to education. Massie notes that Papert was “the visionary who first saw the potential of the computer as an instrument of education of children.”