Nancy DuVergne Smith

IkeaBot Assembles Furniture Using “Common Sense”

by Nancy DuVergne Smith on May 21, 2013

in Engineering

Assembling popular Swedish furniture may help the masses, but it’s only a hint of what goes on in MIT’s Distributed Robotics Laboratory. How the bots do it is the breakthrough. According to a recent IEEE Spectrum article, the bots are fully autonomous and need no human help to whip together a Lack table in 10 minutes. The magic is in the software and the grippers—and that magic can be applied to industrial-scale problems in manufacturing.

Ross A. Knepper, a postdoctoral associate, is leading the effort to teach a team of commercially available KUKA youBots to assemble the furniture. In an earlier life, he created motion planners that drive Mars rovers, unmanned military vehicles, and a personal home-assistant robot called HERB.

With the Ikeabot, Knepper is tackling a key problem in robotics with savvy algorithms.

“A lot of problems in factory automation are similar to the problem in Ikea furniture assembly,” says Knepper. “There are many robots in factories but they perform very simple functions. In the future, we want robots that can move around in the factory and interact with people…so they can be treated as teammates, not just tools.”

Knepper is writing code that creates the kind of common sense that allows humans to work side by side intuitively. “If you imagine two people assembling furniture together, they can infer what the other is doing—they don’t have to explain it. [The IKeabots] are trying to infer how parts fit together and the logical order of assembly.”

Using a natural language feature, the robots can ask for help. If they can’t reach a part, for example, they find a human and ask that the part be handed to them, and then they continue to work.

Space requirements have guided much of robot research in the past few decades, Knepper says. In space, robots need a higher order of intelligence to solve problems and work independently. The payoff may be closer to home though—on the factory floor. Using intelligent robots could help rebuild manufacturing and create jobs in the US. “We will need highly skilled people to operate the robots and robots and humans can trade off jobs,” he says. “You can have a much more efficient process.”

What’s next for the Ikeabot? The team is working on an Allen Wrench glove that the robot can put on and off as needed, and the future is about groups of robots working collaboratively with one another—and with people. And all that fits neatly into the Distributed Robotics Laboratory, which is headed by Daniela Rus, director of the Computer Science and Artificial Intelligence Laboratory (CSAIL). DRL is known for research in programmable matter and distributed robotics. In fact, the lab’s robots have many talents: they can end a garden, bake cookies from scratch, fly in swarms to perform surveillance functions, and dance with humans.

Want the details? Download “The IkeaBot: An Autonomous Multi-Robot Coordinated Furniture Assembly System,” which was nominated for Best Automation Paper at the International Conference on Robotics and Automation (ICRA)in Karlsruhe, Germany, May 2013.

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“I’m A Nuke”: MIT’s Rising Generation of Nuclear Engineers

by Nancy DuVergne Smith on May 14, 2013

in Energy, Engineering

Guest blogger: Peter Dunn

The phrase “young nuclear engineer” has been something of an oxymoron in recent decades, with the nuclear energy industry offering few openings for newcomers. Yet a new crop of nuclear engineers are coming out of MIT and videos themed, “I’m A Nuke,” tell some of their stories.

MIT students host the American Nuclear Society 2013 Student Conference.

MIT students host the American Nuclear Society 2013 Student Conference in April.

Newly educated engineers are vital because the engineers who entered the field in the 1960s and 1970s are retiring, and climate change concerns are sparking renewed interest in the ability to generate continuous carbon-free energy. MIT’s Department of Nuclear Science and Engineering (NSE) has seen a surge in applications from a diverse, dynamic group of students, many of them with strong environmental orientations.

Last month, MIT hosted the recent American Nuclear Society 2013 Student Conference, with the theme, Public Image of the Nuclear Engineer. About 630 US and international students attended the event, which was co-chaired by NSE students Nathan Gibson, Ekaterina Paranomova ‘13, and Samuel Brinton. Publicity coordinator Jake Jurewicz ’14 said the timing, about two years after the Fukushima disaster, was opportune.

“People have had time to digest Fukushima and the lessons learned; we all sat in on talks about what went wrong and what can be done to improve plants and remedy what happened,” said Jurewicz.

More broadly, he added, the conference focused on innovation, new ideas, and cultivation of the new workforce. In addition to talks and technical sessions, activities included a large poster session showcasing attendee research, career and political workshops, a job fair, tours of MIT’s fission and fusion reactors, and a three-minute pitch contest.

Brinton, who is studying nuclear waste policy, captured some of the complexity faced by his generation, saying, “my mother was raised near Three Mile Island, and my dad was an anti-nuclear weapons activist, so I wanted to address the big problems that nuclear was facing….I want to apply a scientific solution to a political problem.”

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Blacksmithing 3.014—MIT Loves Hot Metal

by Nancy DuVergne Smith on May 7, 2013

in Alumni Life, Campus Culture

Guest Blogger: Peter Dunn

coal, before and after it's been in the forge

Mike Tarkanian holds a lump of bituminous blacksmithing coal (right) and a lump of coke (left). Coke is coal reduced to nearly pure carbon after all the volatile compounds have been burned off in the forge. Photos: Peter Dunn.

Mike Tarkanian ’00, SM ’03, a lecturer in the Department of Materials Science and Engineering, is a friendly bearded man with a shaved head and the stout hands of a smith. He honors an ancient practice, standing in a basement room in Building 4, surrounded by anvils, cabinets full of hammers and tongs, a coal bin, and the three barbeque-grill-sized forges that he oversees.

“There’s something about heating things up and smashing them with a hammer that’s universally appealing,” he adds.

That clearly holds true at the Institute, where hundreds of students apply annually for 54 openings in Tarkanian’s IAP class in blacksmithing, and dozens of MSE students work at the forges every semester as part of their Materials Laboratory (3.014) and Materials in the Human Experience (3.094) classes. Tarkanian and MSE Professor Sam Allen also offer a Freshman Advisor Seminar to about a half-dozen incoming students each year.

at the forge

A wide variety of tongs, like the ones being shown by Mike Tarkanian, is essential equipment for any blacksmith. Tongs are often fabricated by the smith for a particular project.

On one level, working at a forge provides deeper comprehension of things like the effects of carbon content on steel or the difficulties of making alloys. But more broadly, says Tarkanian, “craft-based, history-based teaching gives engineers a human connection and a social context.”

Moreover, adds Tarkanian, who discovered the forges as a freshman working with his predecessor, Toby Bashaw, the experience provides important insights for engineering management, especially in manufacturing. “A student who graduates and becomes a boss is much better off if they’ve made things—whether it’s forging or machining or 3-D printing. You need to know the possibilities and the pitfalls, the importance of sequencing, the details that make something look professional. If you don’t, you won’t be effective and you can look foolish.”

Currently, MIT’s forges share space with the MIT Glass Lab. A proposed renovation would incorporate a room across the hall for an expanded metalworking facility and give the Glass Lab the entirety of room 4-003.

While the bigger space might incorporate some gas-fired forges and pneumatic hammers, Tarkanian says basic forges, not unlike those of 6,000 years ago, will remain the program’s centerpiece. “Managing a coal fire and using traditional tools helps people learn the craft better,” he says.

“Today a lot of people are asking, what’s the role of residence-based education,” notes Tarkanian. “Well, it’s stuff like this—you can’t hammer steel through your computer.”

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“Dilbit” Oil Articles Net Pulitzer Prize for Alumna

by Nancy DuVergne Smith on April 19, 2013

in Alumni Life, In the News, Public Service

Lisa Song '08, SM '09

Lisa Song ’08, SM ’09

Lisa Song ’08, SM ’09 won the 2013 Pulitzer Prize for National Reporting along with two other writers working for InsideClimate, a web-based news organization that covers clean energy, carbon energy, nuclear energy, and environmental science.

The Pulitzer honored their reporting on problems with the regulation of America’s oil pipelines, focusing on potential ecological dangers posed by diluted bitumen (or “dilbit”), a controversial form of oil.

Song, who earned an undergraduate degree in earth, atmospheric, and planetary sciences and then a master’s degree in MIT’s graduate program in science writing, coauthored articles on “The Dilbit Disaster: Inside the Biggest Oil Spill You’ve Never Heard Of.” That project explored the million-gallon spill of Canadian tar sands oil into the Kalamazoo River in 2010 and examined broader pipeline safety issues.

Of course the writing program is cheering.

“We are thrilled to hear that Lisa is part of the talented journalistic team that has contributed so brilliantly to the national media discussion of our environmental future,” says Jim Paradis, head, Comparative Media Studies/Writing Department. “I congratulate Lisa and all the members of the MIT Graduate Program in Science Writing who helped her on her way.”

Another MIT SHASS science writing alumna, Carolyn Johnson SM ’04, was part of the Boston Globe team that was a finalist in that same category. The team was  cited for their coverage of the deadly national outbreak of fungal meningitis traced to a compounding pharmacy in suburban Boston, revealing how the medical regulatory system failed to safeguard patients.

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MIT Honors Boston Marathon Injured

by Nancy DuVergne Smith on April 16, 2013

in Public Service

On Monday, April 15, the Boston Marathon festivities were shattered by two explosions near the finish line in Copley Square. MIT alerted the campus community and medical staff were on call to help. Overnight, an American flag appeared on the Green Building to honor those injured. Photo: Courtesy the Boston Globe.

Green bld flag

Photo: Matthew J. Lee / Globe Staff

Update: Read WBUR’s piece on Boston’s resilience by Jim Walsh PhD ’00, an expert in international security and a research associate at MIT’s Security Studies Program.

 

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What’s an MIT Graduate Degree Worth?

by Nancy DuVergne Smith on April 8, 2013

in Alumni Life

MIT’s Office of the Dean for Graduate Education has surveyed a sample of alumni who earned graduate degrees to gain a snapshot of career trajectories, most useful skills, and more. Part of that survey is about salaries and, yes, the news is good. According to the 2012 survey, the average reported annual salary of graduate alumni is $156,793.

Learn more about the surveyed alumni who graduated between five and 25 years ago:

How much do they earn by degree?

The average annual salary for doctoral alumni is $144,320; $214,488 for MBA alumni; and $142,039 for alumni with another type of master’s degree.

Click for charts in the highlights that elaborate survey data.

Who do they work for?

Alumni were most likely to report working in a private for-profit organization, 54%; in a U.S. four-year college or university, 13%; or to be self-employed, 9%.

Where are their current jobs?

At this point in their careers, 22% of doctoral alumni, 39% of MBA alumni, and 25% of other master’s alumni reported that their current position is outside the U.S.

Have they switched fields?

Over half of doctoral alumni have remained in the same field (e.g., consistently in chemistry) while two‐thirds of MBA alumni and 58% of other master’s alumni have changed fields at least once.

Are they entrepreneurial?

Yes! 21% of doctoral alumni, 40% of MBA alumni, and 29% of other master’s alumni say they have started a company.

Are they innovating?

Yes, again: 41% of doctoral alumni, 12% of MBA alumni, and 27% of other master’s alumni have at least one patent or invention.

What skills do they value most?

For doctoral alumni, the top five skills are communicating effectively one‐on‐one, 95%; critical thinking, 95%; time management, 92%; prioritization 91%; and taking initiative, 90%. See the highlights to find out what MBAs and SMs value most.

Want to know more?

The 2012 Graduate Alumni Survey website offers highlights and detailed results.

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Disability, Income Research Hits a (Media) Vein

by Nancy DuVergne Smith on March 29, 2013

in Economics

Autor's research shows the relationship between unemployment and disability claims.

Autor’s research shows the relationship between unemployment and disability claims.

Sometimes an MIT faculty member’s research hits a vein of public interest and corresponding media attention fast. In recent weeks, MIT economist David Autor, whose research includes human capital and wage inequality as well as labor markets and technological change, has been making headlines:

Disability Insurance: America’s $124 Billion Secret Welfare Program

The Atlantic reported March 25 that the Social Security disability program rolls have more than doubled in the past 20 years, even though people are healthier. The article points to Autor’s research to assert that people over 50, the typical population with disabilities, are healthier now than in the 1980s. So what is happening? Autor’s work shows that disability applications relate more to unemployment than health: applications tend to rise and fall with the unemployment rate and most applications come from recently unemployed workers.

Study of Men’s Falling Income Cites Single Parents

Autor’s research is featured in the March 20 New York Times article on the decline of two-parent households, which he links to the growing trend of men earning less. He found that boys raised in single-parent households, which are predominately headed by women, “appear to fare particularly poorly.” For more, download Autor’s report, “Wayward Sons: The Emerging Gender Gap in Labor Markets and Education” on the Third Way website.

Other articles:

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Tug-of-War Victory over Harvard, 1887: Was This MIT’s Greatest Unknown Athletic Feat?

by Nancy DuVergne Smith on March 27, 2013

in Alumni Life, Athletics, Remember When...

Guest Blogger: Debbie Levey, CEE Technical Writer

With a student body notable for athletes as well as scholars, MIT’s 33 varsity sports provide the most intercollegiate offerings among the country’s Division III schools. The Engineers have won 22 team national championships and produced 34 individual national champions, plus 23 Olympic athletes. Within the last 10 years alone, students accrued 464 All-America honors.

MIT's victorious tug of war team: R. M. Clement, 188 (clockwise from top left); H.G. Gross, 1888; F. L. Pierce, 1889; and P. H. Tracy, 1890.

MIT’s victorious tug-of-war team: R. M. Clement, 1888 (clockwise from top left); H.G. Gross, 1888; F. L. Pierce, 1889; and P. H. Tracy, 1890.

Although it has slipped from collective memory, one of Tech’s arguably most thrilling games occurred in 1887.

“The defeat of Harvard’s tug-of-war team by our four untrained and inexperienced men is the greatest athletic feat which the Institute has ever accomplished,” trumpeted The Tech in March 17, 1887. “…We have scored many triumphs in the same line, but never when it was so entirely unlooked for, and under such unfavorable circumstances.”

A photo of the champion tug-of-war team was published in The Tech‘s April 28, 1887, issue with this caption: “We take great pleasure in presenting the readers of THE TECH a phototype of our victorious tug-of-war team, which pulled the Harvard University tug-team 2-1/2 inches.”

When MIT decided to enter the 1887 meet just two weeks before the event, it took a full week to round up four volunteers for a team. They only managed three hours of practice together, while The Tech reported that Harvard’s team “pass the 16-pound shot for fifteen minutes every afternoon.” In addition, MIT’s team fell below the weight limit and therefore lacked the advantage of having all possible pounds where it really mattered.

This untrained and lightweight MIT team faced an opponent with the formidable reputation of “the champion team among colleges.” Then as now, MIT’s victories over Harvard proved particularly sweet.

Alas, tug-of-war contests were on their way out. In 1891 the MIT Athletic Club  joined Harvard and other prominent colleges in dropping tug-of-war from the sports roster. In the following spring, the American Intercollegiate Athletic Association officially replaced tug-of-war with bicycle racing.

While tug-of-war remained an Olympic sport until 1920, college competition peaked in the 1880s. Time magazine wrote in May 27, 1940, “Though few U. S. citizens can remember or believe it, tug-of-war was once the most popular of intercollegiate sports.”

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Is There a Grad Rat in Your Future?

by Nancy DuVergne Smith on March 20, 2013

in Alumni Life, Events

Grad Rats include course and degree as well as symbols of campus life.

Grad Rats include course and degree as well as symbols of campus life.

Graduate students are demonstrating a new interest in buying their own Standard Technology Rings, the official name of the Institute’s iconic rings. While more than 90 percent of undergraduates traditionally buy Brass Rats, sales of its sibling, the Grad Rat, have only taken off in the past five years, says EECS graduate student Katia Shtyrkova, chair of the Graduate Student Council (GSC) Grad Rat committee. She knows because she tracked last year’s sales of 800 rings, a 20 percent boost from the previous year.

Why should graduate students and alumni consider buying a Grad Rat?

“MIT’s graduate ring program, the Grad Rat, is the most successful graduate ring program in the country and one of our community’s most unique and cherished traditions,” says Brian Spatocco, GSC president. A materials science and engineering PhD student, Spatocco bought his Grad Rat shortly after completing his qualifying exams last year.

“Owning a Grad Rat has significance in two major ways—first, for many students and alumni it is symbolic of their time at MIT, both the good times and the struggles. The Grad Rat also unites our students and alumni and is the link that brings our members together, no matter where they may be and no matter how long after they’ve graduated.”

The Grad Rat is also getting with the times. The design was unchanged for decades until the 2004 redesign. Now another new design is in the works and GSC would like alumni input. Fill out a survey to share your thoughts on design features for the ring to be unveiled next fall. The survey closes April 7; you can also email the committee.

What does the current Grad Rat look like? Go to the GSC website to view the design. The ring features degree, course symbol, graduation year, as well as   symbols of MIT life. Alumni can order a ring from any year, designating any degree.

Are Grad Rats useful outside MIT?

“Students’ networking and connections improve greatly from the ring exposure,” says Shtyrkova. “Professionals immediate know the origin of the ring, and the pride and hard work that came with it. MIT has a policy not to give honorary degrees. And as such, the only way to get the ring is to have attended MIT.”

Graduate students and alumni can order a ring during campus ring days, when they can get sized, see the details, and try on different metals. They can also order on Balfour’s online store and receive their rings two months later.

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How Will MIT Strengthen Its Global Impact?

by Nancy DuVergne Smith on March 18, 2013

in Learning

President Reif answers alumni questions in live webcasts.

President Reif answers alumni questions in live webcasts.

Global connections are built into MIT’s fiber. More than 3,000 international students are enrolled in MIT degree programs and the Institute hosts more than 2,000 scholars from 90 countries who teach and conduct research. Some 15 percent of alumni live in 163 countries. MIT has embarked on major educational collaborations in Singapore, Russia, and Abu Dhabi. The MISTI program sends more than 500 students to work in programs in 17 countries each year. And many research areas, such as climate change, must be addressed globally.

So what more should MIT do? President L. Rafael Reif will share his thoughts during a half-hour webcast on Tuesday, March 19, starting at 3:00 p.m. EDT. Alumni are invited to submit a question when they register, or follow the link on the reminder email to pose one during the event.

Here are sample questions:

  • Elizabeth, Atlanta: What’s your assessment of MIT’s global engagement today and what are some of the criteria for making decisions about future projects?
  • Ovidiu, Washington, D.C.: Can you please share your perspective on how MIT plans to engage its alumni to advance entrepreneurship, innovation, and leadership globally?
  • Robert, San Francisco: MIT has involvements in countries around the world, such as Russia, Singapore, and Abu Dhabi. Does the Institute have a strategic plan to coordinate these ventures?

Each of President Reif’s three webcasts for alumni will be available online following the event. You can watch the first two conversations, Transforming MIT’s Educational Experience and Advancing MIT’s Research Mission, now.

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