Find Your Favorite in the MIT 150 Exhibition

Capturing the essence of MIT is tough. It’s a complex place and each person travels a unique journey through the educational corridors, personal experiences, and collective culture. However, the MIT Museum has taken an ambitious shot and created an exhibit of 150 objects and ideas that evoke some singular quintessence of Institute life or emerging knowledge.

The MIT Museum also invited alumni and others to vote on their favorites from the original nominations. From the voting results, here are the most popular items:

1. Baker House Piano Drop

2. Hacking

3. Glass Lab

4. Brass Rat

5. IHTFP

How can you find your favorite object? You can go the museum and see the extensive show through 2011. Or visit virtually online—browse by category or examine the original nominations.When you take your own tour, you may bump into these gems:

Independent Activities Period. IAP is both a respite from regular classes and a chance to plunge into something new and fun. Learn about IAP’s 40-year history through Tech articles and more: “IAP’s Most Famous Class: “How to Gamble If You Must” (Training Grounds for the MIT Blackjack Team), 1979.”

Minsky Arm, 1967–1973. Marvin Minsky designed this arm as part of a computer system that could see and manipulate objects without human control. Learn about the evolution of robot arms and how that work fits into the thinking behind Minsky’s book, The Society of Mind.

Computer Time-Sharing. MIT started working on the first computer time-sharing system in the late 1950s. Figuring out how to allow multiple users to work with a single computer seemingly simultaneously was a major innovation in computing technology during the 1960s.

Scratch, 2007. A new programming language developed by Mitchel Resnick and the Media Lab’s Lifelong Kindergarten group, Scratch continues MIT’s tradition of developing programming tools for all ages.