The New York Times travel section recently featured Cambridge, Mass., and highlighted the hot spots to hit with a mere 36 hours in town. They also created the abbreviated 36 seconds in Cambridge video below. Not surprisingly, an MIT favorite is listed among the must-see sites.
What are your favorite places in Cambridge?
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Guest bloggers: Marisa Simmons ’13 and Steven Pennybaker ’12
Images this page: Engineers Without Borders members build prototype tanks to aid Ugandan residents. Photos: Steven Pennybaker.
Students from the MIT chapter of Engineers Without Borders (EWB) have helped bring clean, usable water to a remote Ugandan village in an ongoing project that has students and community members working together to achieve the goal.
This past summer, the MIT chapter sent two teams to continue work on rainwater harvesting and alternative energy in Ddegeya, Uganda. This is the third year EWB students have worked in the country, and each year the partnership grows stronger. Last year, a 10,000-liter rainwater harvesting tank was installed in the village. EWB hopes to expand rainwater harvesting in Ddegeya, but in a more economical and sustainable manner. After research and collaboration with other NGOs in the country, EWB decided to pursue a partially underground tank system. This design minimizes the resources and costs associated with the tanks.
In addition to technical design, EWB has worked extensively with the community to develop an acceptable distribution model for the tanks. A Water Projects Board, made up of respected members of the community and established in summer 2010, oversees the existing project and helps EWB work on new endeavors. Initially, local residents were only interested in household tanks, but after discussion about EWB and community resources, Ugandans decided communal tanks would be more effective. Locations were then measured and evaluated.
The different components of the tank, including tank lining, pumps, and first-flush systems were also tested and presented to the community for feedback. Each component was evaluated for ease of manufacture and use.
EWB partnered with students from Uganda’s Makerere University to work with the residents on developing prototypes. While in Ddegeya, this team built both a ferrocement and a clay tank prototype. The ferrocement tank consisted of cement with a steel mesh internal support, while the clay tank was made using local clay. Different types of pumps were also built using materials available in the nearby town of Masaka. The pumps built by the MIT team were significantly cheaper than the consumer water pumps available. Finally, two types of first-flush systems, a way to prevent the dirt from roofs from collecting inside the tank, were also built and tested.
While in Uganda, the MIT-EWB team also determined the best houses to use for rainwater catchment. Dwellings were chosen in terms of roof size, location, and Water Projects Board recommendations. Students spent time getting community feedback in terms of the projects’ cost and benefits to those in Ddegeya.
After all prototypes were made, the students presented them to the community, which provided input as to the usability of the design. The feedback was overwhelmingly positive. Despite more than 6,000 miles separating Ddegeya and MIT, the two communities continue to work together to implement the changes. EWB hopes to travel back to Uganda in January 2012 to implement the designs and build five systems including a 5,000-liter tank, pump, first flush, and gutters.
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Kavya Manyapu SM ’10 wants to go to Mars. But until that’s possible, she’s content eating, sleeping, and breathing the Red Planet. The Boeing engineer recently spent two weeks at the Analogue Mars Habitat, a two-story cylindrical building in southern Utah that serves as one of four Mars base-like habitats built by the Mars Society.
The structure, 26 feet in diameter, includes multiple beds, a shower (which each crew member uses once every three or four days), toilet, science lab, kitchen, and work areas.
A roundtrip mission to Mars would take at least two years, so research at the desert station seeks solutions to some of the challenges of extended space travel—maintaining an adequate food supply is one. A study is currently underway to grow nutrient-rich bacteria using recycled water, such as urine.
Read more about Manyapu and watch the video of her experience.
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At the peak of Mt. Katahdin in Maine, Gabe Blanchet neared the end of his four-month hike.
Slice readers may recall some months back when we posted a story about Gabe Blanchet, the MIT student who endeavored to thru-hike all 2,181 miles of the Appalachian Trial to raise money for juvenile diabetes research. We’ve got good news: He made it!
In just 124 days, Blanchet walked from Georgia to Maine and raised more than $11,000 for the Juvenile Diabetes Research Foundation. His three main takeaways, originally published on his blog http://gabehikestheat.tumblr.com/, are posted below:
1) Materials and money do not equal happiness
So long as you have a certain amount of each, you don’t need more. Give it away. Living out of a 38-liter backpack taught me exactly what I need and what I don’t.
2) Experiences are best shared
Except for certain reflective outings, I want the people in my life who I care about to share future experiences and adventures with me. Enough is enough with time alone, and hiking all of June void of companionship showed me that.
3) Hike your own hike, and enjoy it
That’s what Hot Rock (the shuttler who whisked me to the AT in Georgia) told me. And he was right. Perhaps this is part of any young man’s coming of age, but I started to trust my own judgment while making decisions on the Trail.
Read more about Blanchet’s hike on his blog, and view additional photos on his Facebook page.
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Guest Blogger: Greg Tao ’10, graduate student, Department of Mechanical Engineering
For those who don’t know know me or a lot about our project, my name is Greg Tao, and over the last six months I have been developing a low-cost autoclave [sterilizing instrument] for middle income clinics of the developing world.
I am pursuing a master’s degree from MIT’s mechanical engineering department and am working closely with two Nepali students, Pramod Kandel ’14 and Shambhu Koirala ’14, as well as Sue Cho, another mechanical engineering master’s student. We have used their network of family and friends to identify 16 clinics within Nepal that have committed to using our autoclave. We have designed, fabricated, and shipped all the autoclaves in our luggage and will be traveling around Nepal for the next 10 weeks, seeding the autoclaves in rural health clinics.
With that, I’d like to take you through my first day in Nepal.
Pramod and Shambhu picked me up from the airport on Sunday (June 12th). We were continuously accosted in the parking lot for money as we walked through the parking lot searching for a good deal on a taxi. We finally found a fair deal loaded in all the bags. As we took off one particularly persistent beggar kept walking along side the moving taxi hoping for a handout.
After dropping the bags off at the hotel, we hit the streets for some food. The streets near the hotel are very busy and crowded. We walked for about 10 minutes and dropped into a hole in the wall restaurant on a side street after meeting one of Shambhu’s friends. I got to try momo for the first time, which is the equivalent of Nepali fast food. They are essentially vegetable, chicken, or beef dumplings that come fried, steamed, or swimming in a chili sauce.
We headed to see the tourist sites around the city after lunch. Below are a couple pictures from the adventure.
Typical side street in downtown Kathmandu. Credit: Greg Tao
Shambhu and Pramod touring around Basantapur, a famous tourist area and hangout in Kathamndu. Credit: Greg Tao
After a long day of touring, we finally settled into the hotel.
Pramod and Shambhu watching TV in the hotel. Credit: Greg Tao
We’ll post more as the adventure continues. With that I will leave you with the Nepali salutation Namaste, which is used for almost all formal greetings and goodbyes.
Namaste,
Greg
Follow Tao’s travels in Nepal at his blog: http://mitautoclave.wordpress.com/blog/
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Remember a couple weeks ago when we told you about Gabe Blanchet, the MIT student who is hiking the Appalachian Trail to raise money for juvenile diabetes research?
Blanchet is now more than 760 miles from Springer Mountain and doing well, hiking a lot and logging between 20 and 25 miles per day. He recently contacted us to share some photos, and he mentioned (in response to our inquiry) that he’d love to receive notes of encouragement–and food–from any alumni who are interested in supporting him. For breakfast alone, he tries to down at least six packets of oatmeal and two poptarts–and he’s still lost 20 pounds since he began.
Because picking up packages from specified post office locations can be tricky timing-wise, Blanchet has requested that folks send everything to his parents, who will then forward items on to him. Their address is:
Holley Allen (Mother of 3Stove)
39 Shattuck Rd.
Hadley, MA 01035
Scroll down to see images that Blanchet sent. View more and read frequent updates from the trail on his tumblr blog: http://gabehikestheat.tumblr.com/
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This post is part of a series from MIT students currently involved in the Student/Alumni Externship Program, which connects current students to alumni in workplaces worldwide during MIT’s Independent Activities Period. Alumni, learn how to get involved.
Guest Blogger: Jessica Lin ’12, computer science major
Alumnus host: Bela Prasad PhD ’02
Jessica wielding a hoe.
Mr. Rosignol wields his red chainsaw like a toy. The whole day, he’s been cutting trees on this precarious fifty-degree slope, strewn with loose leaves and soil that give way beneath even his small frame. I’ve slipped just standing on the lower part of the incline. He’s wearing bright red coveralls and no ear or eye protection, which makes me nervous as his saw groans and revs and wood chips spray in a fifteen-foot radius around him.
This afternoon, I’m helping him pile logs from the trees he’s cut onto his tractor. The logs will go to the wood shed, where they’ll age for at least three years before they’re ready to be used as firewood.
Mr. Rosignol stops and says something. He speaks only French and has a thick accent local to this rural southwestern region of France–definitely not the crisp speech I heard in high school French class recordings. At first, I can’t figure out what he’s saying, so I have to ask him to repeat himself.
“I’m sixty-seven,” he’s saying. “You look like you’re twenty.” Yet I’ve been doing less work than him, and he’s probably less tired.
The four MIT students on the farming externship. From left: Alexandra de Rosa '13, Jessica Lin '12, Harrison Chen '11, and Patrick Gichuiri '13.
This was just one of the first days of my externship at a small farm on the outskirts of Najac. The farm—owned by Bela Prasad PhD ’02 and Vig Haraldsson SM ’00—is just starting up, soon to become a vineyard. For the past three weeks the three other MIT students here and I have been clearing land in preparation for planting. It’s physical work—turning soil and digging out tenacious weeds, chopping down small trees, laying down gravel paths, and so on.
Yes, I study computer science, and this externship has blissfully nothing to do with it. Instead of thinking about code, I’ve been thinking about how to best protect an area of soil from weeds long-term, how to best move mounds of heavy pebble to its needed location, and how to maintain the structural integrity of centuries-old dry stone walls. Instead of sitting at a keyboard tapping for hours at a time, I’ve cut down my computer usage to, on average, less than an hour a day. Computer science has removed me from physical work, but I’ve had a healthy dose of it here.
I’m gaining muscle and strength every day, but working here is also surprisingly good for the mind and spirit. I’ve improved my concentration simply by being removed from constant context-switching between different classes and p-sets and events. I’m always content, maybe due to the consistently beautiful and quiet surroundings. Mr. Rosignol, my fellow worker for a day, sets an example of the grittiness and self-reliance of the countryside, a place that through its austerity shows me there’s much I don’t need for happiness. The absence of traffic sounds and bright city lights at night is striking.
Life here seems to move more slowly; it takes longer to do some simple things. To throw out the trash, for example, we walk a quarter mile to a bin at the mouth of the small road that runs in front of the farm. But taking out the trash has also never been this scenic and pleasant a stroll.
The front of one of the two farmhouses, showing a fraction of the students' work. The slope on the left side was overgrown with brambles, bushes, and small trees before they arrived, and the path was not visible.
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This post is part of a series from MIT students currently involved in the Student/Alumni Externship Program, which connects current students to alumni in workplaces worldwide during MIT’s Independent Activities Period. Alumni, learn how to get involved.
Guest blogger: Clara He MNG ’10, grad student in mechanical engineering
Alumnus host: Michael Daugherty ’07
Clara He hard at work at a coffee shop with two other local entrepreneurs, Steven and Olof.
What does it take to be an entrepreneur?
To be frank, I don’t know. That is why I applied for the externship with Mike, who in 2010 founded Bespoke Row, which provides tailored men’s clothing online.
After so many internships and long hours sitting in an office yet not accomplishing much, I realized that being an entrepreneur seemed to be a good choice. Yes, why not? I always have so many ideas, and I’m good at doing business models. It wouldn’t be that hard, right?
Then I came to Beijing this January to see how Mike runs his company. Like most of the entrepreneurs, Mike is running Bespoke Row without an investor; therefore, we work at coffee shops since it’s very expensive to rent office space in Beijing. I used to think working in a café was cool and romantic (poisoned by romantic movies). Yet in reality, we have to bear with occasional heated discussions around us, unexpected renovation that goes on all day, and smokers. Mike has set up a Beijing working group, so we always have other entrepreneurs working together with us. I can’t imagine how troublesome it would be to work alone since no one is there to take care of your stuff when you want to go the restroom.
I talked to Mike before I came to Beijing. I really liked his idea of shopping online while designing your own style, but sales weren’t that encouraging yet. We made only one sale to a returning customer (he brought a lot though) after Christmas. Apparently, we need to let more people get to know us before seeing some real money. Mike told me he has been running Bespoke Row with his own savings for more than a year. But there are just so many things to spend on! Data analysis websites, SEO applications, not even mentioning the tailors and fabric suppliers.
See, this is the truth: it takes much more than just a great idea and a good business model to start a business. You need to endure low income or even no income for a long time, poor working environments, and heavy workloads—you will be busy and thinking about your business all the time! Worse still, you may fail.
Be prepared, being an entrepreneur is far from easy.
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Back in the spring we announced the MIT Alumni Travel Program’s MIT Around the World Photo Contest. The idea was to photograph people, places, or things reminiscent of MIT culture or impacted by MIT. Finalists were then voted on by the MIT community, and winners received cool loot, a feature on the Alumni Association homepage, and a place of honor in the Travel Program’s 2011 Explorer catalog.
The winners have been announced and one thing became clear in the voting—MIT peeps prefer their images without gravity—the force, not the demeanor.
Dan Tani ’84, SM ’88 took home top prize with “Brass rat around the world in 90 minutes,” snapped aboard the International Space Station, which seems both a bit of an unfair advantage and ragingly awesome.
"Brass rat around the world in 90 minutes," by Dan Tani '84, SM '88.
Second place went to Nathaniel Sharpe ’09 for “Defying gravity outside the lab,” taken in the mountains of Norway. I’m not sure if they used their camera’s timer but extra points if they did.
"Defying gravity outside the lab," by Nathaniel Sharpe '09.
See all the honorable mentions in our media gallery.
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Oh sure, you could play another round of Tetris or wade into the sea that is YouTube when you’re doing your best not to be productive. But here’s a better idea—especially useful if, in addition to not wanting to work, you’d rather be somewhere else: Go look at somewhere else!
Joseph McMichael, a grad student in electrical engineering and computer science, has hacked Google Street View and developed Globe Genie, a random way to see the world. Simply choose from among five continents (sorry, Antarctica and South America) and Globe Genie, according to McMichael as quoted in the Guardian, “generates random latitude and longitude coordinates within several pre-specified rectangles around regions that have Street View imagery. It then queries Google’s servers to determine whether the point is valid. If not, it repeats this process until it finds a valid location.”
The most amazing thing might just be that when seen in small snippets, locales around the world, no matter how exotic, can also be quite familiar. A lonely street in Trajere, New South Wales, Australia could be a dead ringer for one in rural Michigan (trust me). Be sure to take a 360-degree twirl via the tool in the top left corner of the page.
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