In an article for WBUR, Amelia Mason highlights the top musicians to see at the Outside the Box Festival, highlighting MIT’s Gamelan Galak Tika ensemble. Mason writes that the ensemble “infuses traditional Balinese gamelan music with experimental and modern classical sounds.”
Students from MIT and Harvard are biking across the country, stopping in rural communities along the way in an effort to get kids excited about science, the AP reports. "We can't teach them programming in a day, but we can get them excited about programming," says MIT freshman Drew Bent.
Boston Globe reporter Katherine Landergan writes that during MIT’s 2015 Commencement, U.S. CTO Megan Smith ’86, SM ’88 urged graduates to “be kind, be inclusive, be open.” President L. Rafael Reif asked graduates to have a “bold willingness to disrupt the status quo, to make the world a better place.”
Cybersecurity Factory, an accelerator founded by two MIT graduate students and Highland Capital, recently announced the winning teams who have been accepted into the pilot program, reports Janelle Nanos for BetaBoston. Nanos explains that the goal of Cybersecurity Factory is to “help founders overcome the myriad challenges they often face as they try to get cybersecurity companies off the ground.”
A team of students from MIT and Harvard are biking across the country in an effort to spread enthusiasm for STEM fields, writes Eden Shulman for BetaBoston. During their journey, the students will “host workshops in a variety of STEM fields, providing hands-on science experience to kids that might not otherwise get it.”
Syncopasian, a co-ed a cappella group at MIT, advanced to the final round of the new WGBH singing competition Sing That Thing! Syncopasian competed against high school, college and adult singing groups to make it to the finals, where they were crowned the college champions.
Washington Post reporter Joey LoMonaco writes about incoming freshman Jake Stein’s decision to matriculate at MIT, where he will be playing on the lacrosse team.
Team Raptor Maps received the top prize in MIT’s annual $100K Entrepreneurship Competition, reports Nidhi Subbaraman for BetaBoston. Founded by three MIT students, Raptor Maps “proposes to use camera-carrying drones to survey farmland and pinpoint damage before pests and diseases can decimate crops.”
Nidhi Subbaraman writes for BetaBoston about WaitChatter, a new application developed by MIT students that could help teach users a foreign language while they chat online. “The application uses the brief window when the ellipses dominate the screen as an opportunity to spring a vocabulary quiz,” Subbaraman explains.
WGBH reporter Cristina Quinn reports on this year’s 2.007 robot competition, during which student-built robots faced off on a course inspired by the movie Back to the Future. “We really try to stress real life skills in this class and one of the biggest as a designer is realizing things don’t work as you thought they would,” says Prof. Amos Winter.
MIT freshman Isabel "Izzy" Lloyd has launched a campaign aimed at fostering dialogue between students, reports Priska Neely for NPR. Lloyd created and distributed wristbands that read, “TMAYD MIT” or “Tell Me About Your Day.” She explains that "it's a good way to check in and it spans all different kinds of conversations.”
Boston.com reporter Dialynn Dwyer writes about how graduate student Steven Keating “fought his cancer with curiosity.” Dwyer explains that Keating “gathered his health data in order to understand the science behind what his body was going through” and even filmed his brain surgery.
Marvin Pave of The Boston Globe speaks with MIT junior and softball catcher Tori Jensen about her development as a student and an athlete. “I’ve become mentally tougher, knowing my teammates always have my back,” says Jensen, who holds MIT’s single-season records for both doubles and RBIs.
Boston Globe reporter Jon Garelick writes about the MIT Wind Ensemble and MIT Festival Jazz Ensemble, detailing the history of both performance groups. Garelick writes that a new album by the two groups, “Infinite Winds,” is “one of the most compelling CDs of the year.”
Curt Woodward writes for BetaBoston about how MIT graduate student Ben Letham developed a formula for measuring the misery and difficulty of a particular winter. Woodward explains that Letham’s formula, which gave more weight to snowfall concentrated in short periods of time, showed that “this winter’s snow was more relentless, and more miserable to live through, than any other.”