Which classes cover the material I want to learn? With the introduction of new flexible/interdisciplinary majors, new classes and the likely divergence of a studentʼs interests from their advisorʼs/upperclassmen friendsʼ, it is getting harder for students to identify the best classes to take, especially to learn about material at the intersection of traditional fields.

Which classes match my learning style/objectives? Some students prefer lab-heavy classes, others prefer PSets. Some students want a light class to make time for a UROP, others want the 30 hrs/wk monster. How good the textbook is matters differently to students, etc etc. While Subject Evaluations collect plenty of information, it is locked up in a hard to access and compare format.

WhichClass is an online exploration tool to make it easier to filter classes, and visualize
connections between classes within and across departments.

• Filter classes by learning preferences. Interactively select classes based on Subject Evaluations
  (workload, feedback, overall rating etc), enrollment, professor, department etc.
• Visualize connections between classes. Quickly see (in a dynamic graph) which classes cover
  similar material (within and across departments). Also see connections based on professor, etc.

WhichClass has the potential to make the class selection process significantly faster and easier. It will reduce search processes like the one in the example to just a few minutes, and make it much easier for students to leverage the rich diversity of classes offered by different departments (as well as the information locked up in Subject Evaluations) to make better choices.

Team: Aakanksha Sarda ’14

Campus Preview Weekends (CPW) at MIT plays a big role in students’ decisions on whether or not they want to come to the school for the next four years. A key factor for students is their experience with the people that they meet that weekend, particularly other admits.

Oftentimes, the first thing admits do after the visit is try to find the other admits they meet on Facebook. While sometimes successful, other times it can be a frustrating process because of issues such as forgetting how to spell their names, multiple entries of the same name, etc. MIT has tried to tackle this problem in the past by distributing USB devices that allow for the exchange of contact information via infrared signals, but this has quickly become obsolete in the increasingly mobile world.

touchBase has created a business card that looks and feels like a traditional paper cards, but its information can be downloaded to a touchscreen smartphone with just a simple tap. They want a pack of these personalized business cards to be given out to each admit during CPW as a part of their welcome package.

The business cards leverage of the capacitive touch technology that is present in all touchscreen smartphones, regardless of operating system. Embedded within each card is a thin layer of conductive material. The conductive material in each card is arranged in different dot patterns, thus registering as if they were “fingers” touching the phone at different positions. When the card is tapped on a smartphone, the associated app will identify the unique pattern and download the contact information from a cloud server. Prior to coming to CPW, users can specify what information they are willing to share via the cards. If they wish, users can even choose to provide a link to their Facebook accounts to make for easy “friending”.

Team: Sai To Yeung, ’14, Frank Ni, ’14, James Allen, ’16, Jon Warneke, ’15

As a freshman coming to MIT, many students have no clue what a terminal was or how it could be used to interact with the computer. The main computing environment available to students in Athena clusters is Ubuntu Linux. While using the terminal is not required to use the Athena computers, the ability to navigate the command line interface is a powerful tool in computing at MIT. The problem is clear: students who first are exposed to the Linux terminal on Athena do not know how to approach learning it they learn painfully slowly by accidentally hearing from someone else that a particular command exists. These students are not using the Athena computing environment to the fullest extent.

Gamification, play, and fun are arguably the most effective ways of learning a skill. The Terminus team wanted to combine play with the tedious (and often difficult) task of learning how to navigate a command line. At the same time, they wanted to throw some nostalgia at MIT students. The solution they came up with was a text-based adventure game entitled Terminus, aimed to teach the player to use the command line with basic commands. You are placed into a magical world where you are forced to explore the world with the “cd”, “ls”, and “less” spells you are allowed to “touch” objects, “mv” things, and interact with interesting characters and locations. Your tasks are numerous and interesting you are forced to explore every item you see, talk to every character, and visit almost every location. But you are allowed to do this at your own pace with minimal guidance. Rather than spinning this as a learning experience, the main goal is to have fun exploring a textbased adventure world.

They want to make the command line less scary, but at the same time riveting and engaging. With the addition of graphics, a plot line, comical text, and a set of silly challenges, we hope to immerse the user in the world, getting them more familiar with the standard commands used in a terminal interface.

Team: Michele Pratusevich ’13, Shawn Conrad, MEng ’13

We have observed that MIT undergraduates across dorms feel that the housing assignment process, particularly for returning students, is unnecessarily slow, manual, and prone to mistakes.

Lounge, speeds up and automates the housing reassignment process. In particular, Lounge has:

• Digitized floor plans and rooms for better representation, display, and accessibility.
• Zero-step log-in system (simply click on a dorm building) that uses certificates to directs users directly to their floor.
• Allows users to search easily through rooms, and users
• Supporting various housing assignment methods (pure lottery, points, tiers), allowing to quick adoption by different housing committees
• Efficient way to accept rooming preferences/assignments from users, including options for squatting, and designating roommates to choose rooms for both/multiple partners
• Synchronous lottery system that allows multiple users to select rooms at the same time, to speed up lottery process
• Intuitive interface that distinguishes between admins and residents, allowing only the former to start lotteries, add residents, and set building information.
• Flexible interface based on residences, which can be dorms or individual floors, administered by the appropriate housing chairs
• Convenient .csv-format export feature that will allow information to be stored and manipulated offline.
• Decentralized approach that allowing appropriate “super-admins” to quickly add new buildings, floors, and rooms
• Clear instructions and tips where appropriate to guide users quickly through the web app.