Things get “crazy”! Monday night’s event in Kresge Auditorium—the theme of this year’s Level 2.009 (Product Engineering Process) senior capstone course—was also a good word to describe the energy of the crowd that gathered for the course’s annual product prototype launch.
This popular mechanical engineering course, known on campus as “Two Double Nine,” is designed to simulate the experiences engineers might encounter as part of a design team at a modern product development company. Teams of students work with mentors and are challenged to design, build and draft a business plan for a prototype product. They had a budget of $7,500 and just three months to realize their concept and present it to a live audience on MIT’s largest stage. The event also attracted thousands of viewers around the world to watch the live broadcast online.
This year’s theme invites teams to imagine products that can help end users achieve a variety of “wild” experiences – from allowing them to participate in dangerous sports or activities more safely, to creating more freedom from physical limitations. The six teams, each represented by a colour, deliver products ranging from healthcare solutions to home crafting systems to track cleaners for public transport systems.
Throughout the evening, the Kresge audience cheered and waved colorful pompoms as teams presented their prototypes and shared business plans, marketing their products with stories and carefully designed sets, backdrops and props.
In between lectures, animated shorts entertained the audience, a video montage showcased the semester’s “wild” events, and a live band performed pun-filled pop songs like Dua Lipa’s “Dance Night,” but with the lyrics replaced to reflect 2.009 concepts like “Watch us build!” and “We design, we design, we design!”
In a special musical interlude, the band played Neil Diamond’s “Sweet Caroline” to celebrate the long-standing 2.009 and Pappalardo lab staff member Stephen Haberek (Stephen Haberek), who is retiring after 29 years at MIT. Haberek and course instructor Professor David Wallace (who wore several costumes throughout the evening, but ended up dressing up as Max from Maurice Sendak’s classic children’s book Where the Wild Things Are) Dance as the crowd sings along. Wallace returns from last year’s break to serve as event host. He has directed 2.009 since 1995.
purple team
In the first session of the night, Team Purple showed off their “Sway” prototype, a medical bed attachment and sheet system designed to help nurses reposition patients. Students explained that nurses in nursing homes, hospitals and skilled nursing facilities need to reposition patients every two hours to prevent pressure sores, which can cause pain to patients and can become infected, leading to more complications or even die. Although necessary, the process can be difficult and time-consuming. Lifting a patient can cause injury to the nurse, and the entire process can take up to 30 minutes and can be invasive to the patient.
The Sway is a remotely controlled sheet and roller system that attaches to a hospital bed and is used to cradle and lift patients, preventing nurses from stressing themselves out by lifting and cutting the time to about two minutes. The remote control can be operated with one hand, freeing the nurse’s other hand to maintain contact with the patient and guide positioning. The team next plans to pilot Sway in nursing homes around the Cambridge area and apply for FDA approval.
green team
Next, the Green Team demonstrated the “Wake Buddy,” a wakeboard handle and monitoring system that enables two-way communication between the wakeboarder and boat driver.
Traditionally, wakeboarders use hand signals to communicate with drivers, but this requires taking one hand off the bars, a process the team says can be difficult, especially for novice skiers. Buttons on the handles allow skiers to indicate to the driver that they want to slow down or speed up, and a vibration system lets the driver alert the skier when there’s reason to pay extra attention, such as rough water ahead. When a skier falls and the handle drops, a “force-sensitive resistor” senses changes in grip pressure and alerts the driver.
In perhaps the night’s most notable use of the term “beachhead market” (a term that describes a market with specific characteristics that make it an ideal target for launching a new product or service), the team announced plans to first launch Wake Buddy in the works Another period of product testing followed by partnerships with marinas, resorts and sporting goods stores in Florida.
pink team
The Pink team followed suit with “Contour,” a software-free laser-driven cutting machine that cuts user-created contours out of organic materials. Launched with the slogan “Sketch, Scan, Create,” students introduced Contour as an option for craftsmen whose designs are “too complex for scissors or X-Acto knives” and who may not have the space or interest to use it Powerful tools, or people who may not be interested in learning complex software.
The machine, slightly larger than a breadbox, uses a camera with a 120-degree viewing angle to identify designs and a 10-watt diode laser to perform the cuts. It can cut wood, cardboard or paper up to eight inches thick. The team says the tool is not only suitable for artists and hobbyists, but also for rapid prototyping in the classroom or engineering workplace.
blue team
In their pitch, Team Blue first presented data from a survey they conducted of MIT students, asking team members a question they themselves said they feared being asked: “How often do you wash your hands?” Reusable water bottles?” More than half of the 264 MIT students they surveyed said they “perform this task less than once a month.”
‘nami’ is an automatic water bottle cleaner designed to be installed next to existing water bottle filling stations on university campuses, making cleaning easier and more convenient. Named after the Japanese word for “wave,” the Nano uses a nozzle aimed directly at what the team determines is the dirtiest part of a water bottle, drawing hot soapy and pressurized water from a plumbing supply line and its on-board detergent tank.
An MIT staff member watching from home asked if the system could also be used to clean travel coffee mugs and lids, to which the team responded, “Yes;” as long as the coffee mugs meet size specifications. System is cleaned. One of Kresge’s young audience members asked the team if they would consider installing a device in the primary school in the future. Yes, they said, that was a possibility.
Yellow team
Healthy water is also important for animals. Next up is the yellow team. Their product “Feedback” is an automated fish food distribution control and monitoring system for commercial fish farmers that works with the farmer’s existing fish feeders to maximize fish growth while maximizing Reduce food waste.
Through sensors placed in the water tanks to monitor oxygen and temperature, and using input from farmers, the system calculates and distributes the optimal amount of food, while also tracking and live-streaming the data. The team estimates that using the tool could save individual farmers up to $50,000 per year in food waste and labor costs.
red team
There was no slowing down as the red team took the stage for the final presentation of the night. Their product, “On Track,” is an automated, electric device that removes contaminants from rail tracks to increase rail safety and minimize travel delays.
Students explained that the black deposits, also known as “slime,” are formed when heavy train cars compress fallen leaves on the tracks under their own weight. This buildup can lead to accidents or “slip” incidents on the track, forcing increased maintenance or the creation of slow speed zones on train lines until cleaning can be carried out.
Measuring 66 x 75 x 25 inches and weighing approximately 600 pounds, On Track units are small enough to be stored on-site at train stations throughout the transportation network and can be quickly deployed by maintenance teams. Wire brushes polish the tracks, which the team says makes them look almost new, and with a cleaning speed of 6 mph, the units can cover much of the track during off-hours.
The team also considered safety measures. On Track is equipped with an “intelligent obstacle avoidance system” that stops when it senses something in its path – a feature demonstrated by a student who jumped onto the track behind a moving car. The move drew gasps and applause from the crowd as the vehicle sensed him and stopped.
Thanks, good night
At the end of the evening, Wallace thanked the many people behind the scenes who worked hard to make the evening a success, including lab instructors, teaching assistants, staff, technicians, mentors, and program producers. He also expressed his gratitude to his classmates and offered some parting words.
“Most importantly, feel the wild potential within you,” Wallace said. “Free to dream. Be a little untamed. Move the boundaries and don’t settle for less than good. Know you can take action, and the real excitement comes from the effort of trying, doesn’t it? Imagine the story you haven’t written yet, even if everything doesn’t click Anticipation proceeds and in time you will also be able to look back and think “Wow! “That’s crazy.'”
A replay of the 2.009 webcast is available on the course website. Products and final demos from previous years, as well as project milestone presentations, can be found in the 2.009 gallery.