For the past 50 years, mechanical engineering students at MIT have convened on campus for a boisterous robot competition. Since the 1970s, when the late Professor Emeritus Woodie Flowers first challenged students to build a machine using a “kit of junk,” students in class 2.007 (Design and Manufacturing I) have designed and built their own robots to compete in the class’s final robot competition. For many students, the class and competition are a driving factor in their decision to enroll in MIT.
“Each year, students tell us that they came to MIT specifically to take 2.007 and participate in the mayhem of creating these robots and doing this fun competition,” says Amos Winter, associate professor of mechanical engineering and 2.007 co-lead instructor.
This was the case for Julianna Rodriguez, a rising senior studying mechanical engineering. “For me, 2.007 was the class I’ve been most looking forward to at MIT. It serves as a bridge between the technical classes I’ve taken and actually being able to build something tangible,” says Rodriguez.
As with many hands-on classes, in March 2020 the faculty and teaching staff of 2.007 had to scrap plans for in-person elements, including the iconic final robot competition. While the team quickly pivoted to a version of the class focused on computer-aided design (CAD) and analysis, many, including Winter, were left heartbroken that students weren’t able to build and compete with their robot as they had hoped.
“I really felt that students lost out on that physical connection to mechanical engineering that comes from hands-on work. They didn’t learn all those important lessons of building something in the real world, having it fail, then figuring out how to fix it,” says Winter.
Winter and 2.007 co-lead instructor, Sangbae Kim, professor of mechanical engineering, immediately started envisioning what 2.007 might look like in spring 2021.
“As an educator, it was such a great learning opportunity. The challenges forced us to think differently and be more creative,” adds Kim.
Knowing there would be many challenges associated with giving students the hands-on, confidence-building experience 2.007 usually provides, Winter led an effort to re-imagine the class and account for any eventuality. He secured resources from MIT’s Department of Mechanical Engineering, including hiring Antoni Soledad ’21, who participated in the Undergraduate Research Opportunity Program (UROP) under Winter’s guidance. Winter took the fall semester off from teaching so he could focus on developing an entirely new 2.007 curriculum that maintained the class’s core tenets, including how the team could pull off a live, head-to-head, remote robot competition.
A 130-pound delivery
The team developed a list of “must haves” when brainstorming how to re-envision 2.007. First and foremost was retaining the confidence-building element of students coming up with their own design and building it with their own two hands, while at the same time learning core mechanical engineering principles.
“It was critical for this year's class for us to provide all the magic and deep engineering learning that comes from our normal hands-on experience, but do it in a remote environment,” adds Winter.
Central to all the teaching staff’s goals was equity. With some students likely participating fully remotely, the teaching team had to come up with solutions that were fair to everyone, whether they lived in a dorm, apartment, or across the country in their family’s home.
The team’s solution was to send a kit of materials to all 130 students in the class. The first generation of the kit was developed last summer by Soledad. By fall, Winter and Soledad were joined by teaching assistant Georgia Van de Zande and four other UROPs to continue iterating the kit.
“Because the students couldn’t come to the Pappalardo lab, we decided to send the Pappalardo lab to them,” says Van de Zande.
