In the 2015 competition, students were asked to “Imagine MIT” … 20 years in the future. Submissions addressed what education at MIT might look like in 20 years. And, how much student life might change and what technologies we might be using. The iCampusAccessibility and Team a14z teams both approached this in unique ways and presented their vision to the judging panel on April 16, 2015.

The grand prize winning iCampusAccessibility team of William Li, ‘G and Dhruv Jain, ‘G provided a vision for a more accessible MIT. And runner-up Team a14z with members Colin McDonnell, ‘16; John Peurifoy, ’18; Gabriel Ginorio, ’18 and Sam Van Cise, ’18 explored the exponential future provided by computers and virtual reality to change the campus experience.

About the iCampus Prize

The iCampus Student Prize recognizes the innovative and creative application of technology that improves living and learning at MIT. The competition builds upon the entrepreneurism and spirit of service exhibited by MIT students to solve the world’s problems by focusing attention of what might be improved closer to home in MIT’s education and student life. The competition is open to all current MIT undergraduates and graduate students, both individuals and groups. Entries must involve the use of technology to enhance living and learning at MIT.

Further information on the iCampus Prize, as well as announcements of future competitions, can be found at iCampusPrize.mit.edu.

Presentations

The two finalists in the 2014 iCampus Student Prize competition participated in a poster session and gave presentations to the judging panel on May 2, 2014.

Daryl Neubieser and Michael Everett present OfCourse

Aidan Bevacqua demonstrates MIT Locate

Photo Credit: Brandon Muramatsu

2014 Winners

Grand Prize Winner: OfCourse

Source: Brandon Muramatsu

OfCourse

To allow students to create their course schedules, OfCourse allows for a quick copy-and-paste data entry, aggregates all the useful information from MIT sources, and makes recommendations based on course requirements and how much other students with a similar background enjoyed a class.

The start of the school year is marked by the (mad) scramble of students figuring out what classes to take next. MIT’s Course Catalog and Evaluations are difficult to sort and filter for each student’s needs. Other tools help pick out only what is required, and takes too long to enter classes. Other options only help when students know the classes they will be taking.

Daryl Neubieser, ’16, and Michael Everett, ’15 developed OfCourse to address these issues. OfCourse allows for a quick copy-and-paste data entry, aggregates all the useful information from MIT sources, and makes recommendations based on course requirements and how much other students with a similar background enjoyed the class. According to Dean Freeman, the head of freshman advisors, this would also help advisors make course recommendations.

OfCourse was awarded $3,000 as the grand prize winner in the 2015 iCampus Student Prize competition.

Runner Up: MIT Locate

Source: Aidan Bevacqua

MIT Locate

MIT Locate is a smartphone and web application that enables MIT students to locate each other on campus, as well as set alerts to notify them when a friend is nearby.

Aidan Bevacqua, ’16, noticed that MIT students are always running 5 minutes late even when meeting up with friends. Every “Where are you?” text increases the tardiness. Aidan developed MIT Locate for the Web and Android mobile devices. MIT Locate uses Wi-Fi access point data to allow students to broadcast their detailed location to their friends. It can pinpoint the exact room they are in, making it more useful than other social location apps. Users can set up alerts to notify when a friend is nearby or have arrived at a particular room or building.

MIT Locate was awarded $1,500 as the runner up in the 2015 iCampus Student Prize competition.

Final Round Presentations

Video coming soon!

More Information

Further information on the iCampus Prize, as well as announcements of future competitions, can be found at iCampusPrize.mit.edu.

About the iCampus Prize

The iCampus Student Prize recognizes the innovative and creative application of technology that improves living and learning at MIT. The competition builds upon the entrepreneurism and spirit of service exhibited by MIT students to solve the world’s problems by focusing attention of what might be improved closer to home in MIT’s education and student life.

The competition is open to all current MIT undergraduates and graduate students, both individuals and groups. Entries must involve the use of technology to enhance living and learning at MIT, and they must be developed to the point where MIT could adopt them and integrate them into MIT.

See the related article at MIT News.

The MIT Council for Educational Technology (MITCET) and the Office of Educational Innovation and Technology (OEIT) are pleased to announce WhichClass as the grand prize winner and Lounge and EduCase as the runners-up of the 2013 iCampus Student Prize competition.

2013 Winners

Winners Recognized

Aakanksha Sarda, ’14, WhichClass, and Abubakar Abid, ’15, Lounge, were recognized during the Office of Digital Learning retreat on May 17, 2013. (Sara Itani, ’12/’G of EduCase was unable to attend the award presentation.)

Aakanksha Sarda Receives Grand Prize Award

Abubakar Abid, ’15 Receives Runner Up Prize

WhichClass: Grand Prize Winner

WhichClass

Which classes cover the material I want to learn? Which classes match my learning style/objectives? WhichClass is an online exploration tool to make it easier to filter classes, and visualize connections between classes within and across departments. WhichClass was developed by Aakanksha Sarda, ’14.

In addition to it’s primary audience of students, the judges saw the potential of WhichClass to better to understand the relationships between courses across departments. These insights are especially important as MIT continues to explore all aspects of digital learning. Aakanksha received $6,000 as the grand prize winner. OEIT will be working with Aakanksha once she returns from her summer abroad to further develop WhichClass.

Lounge: Runner Up

Lounge

The team of Abubakar Abid ’15, Abdulrahman Alfozan ’15 and Aziz Alghunaim ’15 observed that MIT undergraduates across different dorms feel that the housing assignment process, particularly for returning students, is unnecessarily slow, manual, and prone to errors. As a result, they created Lounge, an electronic platform that speeds up and automates the housing process, while giving dorms the flexibility to preserve their individual housing traditions.

Abubakar accepted the $3,000 in prizes on behalf of his teammates. During the award ceremony, he also announced that Lounge was used to successfully run Maseeh Hall’s Fall 2013 room assignment process. OEIT expects that the Lounge team will continue to refine their software and work with more dorms to implement it in future years.

EduCase: Runner Up

EduCase

EduCase bills itself as the easiest, quickest, and cheapest way to record video lectures – no cameraman, no hours wasted editing. A professor walks into a class, folds open his EduCase, and presses a button for a hassle-free-lecture-recording experience. The EduCase team includes Sara Itani, ’12/’Grad and Adin Schmahmann, ’13.

The judges were very interested in the potential of EduCase to help streamline the process of recording lecture videos as MIT expands further into digital and online learning. OEIT will work with the EduCase team as they continue to develop the project.

More Information

Further information on the iCampus Prize, as well as announcements of future competitions, can be found at iCampusPrize.mit.edu.

About the iCampus Prize

The iCampus Student Prize recognizes the innovative and creative application of technology that improves living and learning at MIT. The competition builds upon the entrepreneurism and spirit of service exhibited by MIT students to solve the world’s problems by focusing attention of what might be improved closer to home in MIT’s education and student life.

The competition is open to all current MIT undergraduates and graduate students, both individuals and groups. Entries must involve the use of technology to enhance living and learning at MIT, and they must be developed to the point where MIT could adopt them and integrate them into MIT.

See related article at MIT News and the MIT Office of the Dean for Undergraduate Education Newsletter.

The MIT Council for Educational Technology (MITCET) and the Office of Educational Innovation and Technology (OEIT) are pleased to announce CourseRoad as the grand prize winner and Dormbase as the runner-up of the 2012 iCampus Student Prize competition. CourseRoad and Dormbasewere recognized during the Institute’s Freshman Awards ceremony on May 17, 2012.

CourseRoad: Danny Ben-David, ’15 and President Hockfield
 

Dormbase: Alex Chernyakhovsky ’14, Cosmos Darwin ’15, Drew Dennison ’13, Isaac Evans ’13, and Luke O’Malley ’14 and President Hockfield

Photo Credit: Anna Babi Klein

CourseRoad and Dormbase emerged as the top projects from the final round competition where the five finalists from the first round competition were invited to present a poster and give a short presentation on their project. Judges from MIT and Microsoft evaluated the finalists in three areas: relevance to MIT, potential for impact and design.

2012 Winners

CourseRoad: Grand Prize Winner

Source: Brandon Muramatsu

CourseRoad

CourseRoad builds a user-friendly page where users can map out their classes through their undergraduate careers. CourseRoad presents the user with a vertical timeline of undergraduate semesters, and makes it easy to add, remove, and drag classes between terms. The site then provides a web of prerequisite and corequisite connections between the classes and visually alerts the user to any conflicts. CourseRoad is currently in beta testing. The CourseRoad team consisted of Danny Ben-David, ’15.

The judges were impressed with the progress that Danny made as an one person team, and thought CourseRoad could be a powerful tool for students and their advisors. Danny received a check for $6,000 as grand prize winner. OEIT will be working with Danny through the summer to further develop CourseRoad.

Dormbase: Runner-Up

The judges recognized Dormbase the potential Dormbase has to improve student-run dorm operations across the Institute, naming it runner-up for the 2012 iCampus Student Prize competition. The Dormbase team will split the $4,000 cash prize as runner-up.

Source: Brandon Muramatsu

Dormbase

Dormbase is a web-based system that provides MIT dormitories with the tools and services they need for daily operation. It provides reliable, modern, and user-friendly online services for residents, desk workers, and student administrators. The goal is for Dormbase to provide a consistent user experience across all MIT dormitories. The Dormbaseteam consisted of Alex Chernyakhovsky ’14, Cosmos Darwin ’15, Drew Dennison ’13, Isaac Evans ’13, and Luke O’Malley ’14. 

Congratulations to the winners and all that participated in the 2012 competition!

More Information

Further information on the iCampus Prize, as well as announcements of future competitions, can be found at iCampusPrize.mit.edu.

About the iCampus Prize

The iCampus Student Prize recognizes the innovative and creative application of technology that improves living and learning at MIT. The competition builds upon the entrepreneurism and spirit of service exhibited by MIT students to solve the world’s problems by focusing attention of what might be improved closer to home in MIT’s education and student life.

The competition is open to all current MIT undergraduates and graduate students, both individuals and groups. Entries must involve the use of technology to enhance living and learning at MIT, and they must be developed to the point where MIT could adopt them and integrate them into MIT.

The five finalists from the first round competition were invited to present a poster and give a short presentation at the MIT Faculty Club on April 25, 2011. Judges from MIT and Microsoft Research evaluated the five finalists in four areas: relevance to MIT, potential for impact, design and possible barriers to implementation.

Congratulations to all that participated in the 2011 competition!

Grand Prize Winner

Bookxor closes the feedback loop between students and professors for course notes providing professors analytics and enabling students to study collaboratively. The Bookxor Team consists of Peter Reinhardt ’12, Erika Bildsten ’12, Ilya Volodarsky ’12, and Calvin French-Owen ’12.

The judges remarked that Bookxor “adds unique value to reading online, add[ing] a sorely needed assessment tool to an instructor’s arsenal.” Of the finalists, Bookxor was the “best thought out, with big goals.”

Photo Credits: Jeff Merriman

l-Bookxor Team; r-Peter Reinhardt describes Bookxor

Runner-Up
The judges also recognized the contributions BooksPicker has made to the MIT community, naming it runner-up for the 2011 iCampus Student Prize competition. BooksPicker received a $2,500 cash prize as runner-up.

Bookspicker allows students to search for what textbooks are required for their classes, pick the ones they want and look for the best prices online, the Coop or locally. The BooksPicker team consists of Sinchan Banerjee ’11, Jonathan Goldberg BS ’09 & MEng ’10, and Rodrigo Ipince ’09.

More Information
Further information on the iCampus Prize, as well as announcements of future competitions, can be found at iCampusPrize.mit.edu.

About the iCampus Prize
The iCampus Technology Innovation Student Prize recognizes the innovative and creative application of technology that improves the educational and student life experiences at MIT. The competition builds upon the entrepreneurism and spirit of service exhibited by MIT students to solve the world’s problems by focusing attention of what might be improved closer to home in MIT’s education and student life.

The competition is open to all current MIT undergraduates and graduate students, both individuals and groups. Entries must involve the use of technology to enhance life and learning at MIT, and they must be developed to the point where MIT could adopt them and make them part of its environment.

Source: Brandon Muramatsu

Edgerton Digital Collections and Shakespeare Project, Michael (Mitcho) Erlewine 'G

The MIT Council for Educational Technology (MITCET) and OEIT are pleased to announce that Michael (Mitcho) Yoshitaka Erlewine ‘G, a Ph.D. candidate in the Department of Linguistics and Philosophy, has been awarded the 2010 Microsoft Research iCampus Technology Innovation Student Prize (the icampus student prize) for his work on “Sustainable Web Development for the MIT Community Using WordPress”.

Mitcho Erlewine’s programming work was essential for the creation and deployment of three online educational resources that were built on the WordPress web-publishing platform: the Edgerton Digital Collection, which featured over 8,000 photographs and 12,000 pages of Doc Edgerton’s research notebooks, made public for the first time through this site; the MIT Math CI Space, which enables instructors in the Department of Mathematics to share resources and best practices for teaching communication-intensive mathematics courses; and the MIT Shakespeare Project, which catalogs information on unique Shakespeare performances and interpretations from around the world.

Mr. Erlewine’s work included data structure architecture, metadata synchronization, and enhancements to the WordPress platform such as new functionalities for Creative Commons licensing, batch file upload and download, and certificate authentication and authorization. Through free, public distribution of component functionality as WordPress plugins, the technology innovations are shared with the greater WordPress and academic communities.

2009 iCampus Prize Winners
(l-r: S. Zyto, V. Ivanova, C. Varenhorst, J. Cannon, V. Kumar)

iCampus winners Chris Varenhorst ’09 and Justin Cannon ’08 demonstrated their Lingt Language website, an interactive tool for language learning. Second place winner Sacha Zyto ‘G demonstrated his PDF Communal Annotation Site. Drs. Kumar and Ivanova administered the prize competition and presented awards to the winners.

The Office of Educational Innovation and Technology (OEIT) and the MIT Council on Educational Technology (MITCET) are pleased to announce the annual Microsoft Research iCampus Technology Innovation Student (MRiTIS) Prize. Made possible by a generous endowment by Microsoft Research following the completion of the iCampus initiative, the MRiTIS Prize recognizes innovative applications of information technology to enhance education and/or improve student life.

Source: Brandon Muramatsu

Course Picker