Independent Study

This class is jointly sponsored by the MIT Museum, Massachusetts Bay Maritime Artisans, the Department of Mechanical Engineering's Center for Ocean Engineering, and the Department of Architecture. The course teaches the fundamental steps in traditional boat design and demonstrates connections between craft and modern methods. Instructors provide vessel design orientation and then students carve their own shape ideas in the form of a wooden half-hull model. Experts teach the traditional skills of visualizing and carving your model in this phase of the class. After the models are completed, a practicing naval architect guides students in translating shape from models into a lines plan. The final phase of the class is a comparative analysis of the designs generated by the group. This course is offered during the Independent Activities Period (IAP), which is a special 4-week term at MIT that runs from the first week of January until the end of the month.

This course is offered to undergraduates and introduces students to the formulation, methodology, and techniques for numerical solution of engineering problems. Topics covered include: fundamental principles of digital computing and the implications for algorithm accuracy and stability, error propagation and stability, the solution of systems of linear equations, including direct and iterative techniques, roots of equations and systems of equations, numerical interpolation, differentiation and integration, fundamentals of finite-difference solutions to ordinary differential equations, and error and convergence analysis. The subject is taught the first half of the term. This subject was originally offered in Course 13 (Department of Ocean Engineering) as 13.002J. In 2005, ocean engineering became part of Course 2 (Department of Mechanical Engineering), and this subject was renumbered 2.993J.

Teaches creative design based on the scientific method through the design, engineering, and manufacture of a detailed inlaid tile. This is an introductory lecture/studio course designed to teach students the basic principles of design and expose them to the design process. Throughout the course, students will be introduced to the terminology and concepts that underlie all forms of visual art; which--in many ways--forms the basis for the design of all physical objects. Along with learning mechanical skills, thinking both critically and visually, and working with different media, the students will consider how the arts grow out of and respond to particular cultural contexts and ideas; and how these thinking patterns can be applied to virtually all types of design. Presentations, lectures, demonstrations, discussions and various artistic works will be used to show students how other artists and designers have dealt with the same issues they will be facing in lab.  Each class will begin with a critique of the students' homework, followed by a discussion (and presentation when appropriate) of the pertinent issues of that week. All aspects of the course will aid the teams of students in designing and building a major inlaid tile whose elements are designed as digital solid models and manufactured on an abrasive waterjet machining center. The course will conclude with an exhibit of the completed tiles open to the MIT and the Greater-Boston public. Enrollment is limited to 16 students who will be divided into groups of 4 students each. Preference will be given to students who attend the first day of class in a pre-selected team of 4.