Epic Boston Weekend

Went to Boston this weekend with copilot Emily (of course I didn't let her drive) for some shenanigans with the one and only Ryan Keating. Took the bus from Portland which is pretty economical, especially with the student discount. Stayed with Ryan in his dorm at MIT, where we met some very cool people and saw some very hilarious dorm murals. At MIT apparently it is totally cool to have a giant mural of pokemon literally having an orgy in the hallway of a dormitory. Jigga-whhhhaattt?

First order of business was the Maine vs. Northeastern Hockey "game" which was more like watching the two lowest ranked teams in Hockey East shoot at each other's skates.... Oh, wait... Well we tied. That was uneventful. Still glad I went to see the game and got to hangout with Mikey B and the rest of the Boston NU crew for the game. Mike always comes up for the Northeastern game in Orono, so I was glad to finally go down. Had some good times meeting Keatings friends and hanging out at MIT.

The next day, I went to the MIT press bookstore. It was awesome, there were really sweet books basically everywhere you looked. I ended up buying three before we left, one on the history of Electronics, another on energy stuff and a book about successful kickstarters. Then the girls hit the mall while Keating and I hit the MIT campus. The MIT museum is sweet and everyone should go there. If you need further convincing, check out this video of this sweet kinetic sculpture. Basically, there were like 50 more things that was nearly as satisfying as this.

There was this awesome gearbox, the final gear will take something like 11 billion years to complete one revolution. You can see the first 3-4 gears actually spinning but beyond that they all look stationary.

This picture doesn't do this kinetic sculpture justice, there is so much going on with it that you really just have to see for yourself. Basically, just loads of simple mechanisms made of wire just flicking, rotating, oscillating and looking cool as hell.

Then, Ryan and I made our way through the Edegerton Center where we met Ed doing the "Saturday thing". Ed is an instructor at the center and organizes some sort of open ended workshop type thing every saturday for whoever might be around. A small group of neighborhood kids come every week, as well as some current MIT students and anyone who happens to walk by. Ryan and I walked by and ended up spending nearly two hours hanging out. I spoke with a freshman who was building an electric skateboard and harvesting the batteries from a previous build that I've seen posted on the internet (I saw a lot of stuff from the internet actually). I also taught a middle schooler about electricity. The whole time we were there was actually pretty magical and it's hard to convey just how cool it was. I wish there was a "Saturday thing" around here, Ed actually even offered to come up to Maine for a weekend and have one. 

After that, we went to the Media lab and checked out the cool stuff there. Played pingpong on this table that projects fish onto it, the fish respond to the sound the ball makes. There are a bunch of microphones mounting underneath the table that triangulate the sound. It's not super accurate but it is fun to watch the fish all dart back and forth as you play a game. 

A laser harp Ed made

Ping-pong fishes

Had a delayed voyage home due to some Emily mis-adventures but made it back late Sunday night. Oh, I also went to MITERs and was very surprised at how small it is.