Project Research

Commalla: Communication for All

(Note: This project was previously called ECHOS.)  Official Commalla website:  https://commallamit.wixsite.com/commal...
Project Research

A Counting

A voice portrait of major US cities. We invite you to: experience the NYC edition by watching here or listening at 917-905...
Article Research

Coded Illustrations

Zach Lieberman talks about the illustrations he created for this week’s cover story of The NYT Magazine and translating code-based art.
Article Research

Career Girls Role Models: Alexis Hope

Alexis Hope talks about her work that focuses on broadening the participation of women in designing technology for women’s health.
Project Research

Material Functionalization

When materials sciences meet HCI and e-textiles, for custom sensors and actuatorsIn this project we explore the process of polymerization...
Publication Research

Defund Big Tech, Refund Community: Anti-Trust is Not Enough, Another Tech is Possible

Barendregt, W., Becker, C., Cheon, E., Clement, A., Reynolds-Cuéllar, P., Schuler, D., & Suchman, L. (2021). Defund Big Tech, Refund Community. Tech Otherwise. https://doi.org/10.21428/93b2c832.e0100a3f
Project Research

The MIT Autonomous Bicycle Project

A lightweight research platform to develop autonomous technology Designed to transform bicycle-sharing systems into an on-demand mob...
Article Research

What’s it like to design a meal that floats?

Taking a taste of the sensory research of Space Exploration Initiative’s Maggie Coblentz
Project Research

Tasting Menu in Zero G

 A multi-course tasting menu was flown on a zero gravity flight in August 2019.  Five specially crafted dishes were consum...
Research
PlusMinus

PlusMinus
Project Research

Creative Learning Design Tools

While text-editors (e.g. Google Docs, MS Word) might be useful for writing a lecture, they’re not an intuitive medium for designing exper...
Article Research

Why Ekene Ijeoma advocates to design for the citizen, not just the consumer

Ekene Ijeoma, head of the Poetic Justice research group, talks to Frame about his work.
Article Research

Career Girls Role Models: Marian Muthui

Marian Muthui talks about her career path, from mechanical engineering to design research.
Research
Digital Learning + Collaboration Studio

Digital Learning & Collaboration Studio
Research
Biomechatronics

Enhancing human physical capability
Archived
Research
ML Learning

ML Learning
Project Research

Powered Ankle-Foot Prosthesis

The human ankle provides a significant amount of net positive work during the stance period of walking, especially at moderate to fast wa...
Publication Research

Electric-Energetic Consequences of Springs in Lower-Extremity Powered Prostheses on Varied Terrain

M. E. Carney and H. Herr, "Electric-Energetic Consequences of Springs in Lower-Extremity Powered Prostheses on Varied Terrain," 2020 8th IEEE RAS/EMBS International Conference for Biomedical Robotics and Biomechatronics (BioRob), New York City, NY, USA, 2020, pp. 989-996, doi: 10.1109/BioRob49111.2020.9224458.
Project Research

Essence Wearables: Biometric Olfactory Interfaces for Day and Night

Human-computer interaction (HCI) has traditionally focused on designing and investigating interfaces that provide explicit visual, audito...
Project Research

Play Analytics

Analyzing detailed data from SpeechBlocks to understand how kids engage with constructionist literacy learning technologies, with th...
Gallery Research

Redesigning YouTube

Middle school students reimagine the YouTube platform. Students consider the stakeholders in YouTube, the goal of the recommendation algo...
Article Research

The G protein coupled receptor CXCR4 designed by the QTY code becomes more hydrophilic and retains cell signaling activity

Designer partial water-soluble GPCR CXCR4QTY29 variant receptor retains ligand binding activity and in vivo cell singling.
Project Research

On-Face Olfactory Interfaces

We envision that a close-to-nose interface could be used as a complementary or alternative wearable method to nasal cannulas or mask...
Research
Personal Robots

Building intelligent personified technologies that collaborate with people to help them learn, thrive, and flourish.
Center for Civic Media
Archived
Project Research

WOSNA - WorkOut Sensor Node Assistant

We are presenting the WorkOut Sensor Node Assistant (WOSNA), a body sensor net composed of many tiny sensor nodes that can suck on the sk...
Archived
Project Research

LightCloud: Future of Dynamic Lighting in the Shared Space

Lighting conditions in an indoor environment have been shown to affect our cognition and behaviors in a variety of ways. On average, we s...
Archived
Project Research

Project Captivate: A wearable platform for measurement and actuation across contexts

Project Captivate have been designed to serve as an easy and reliable platform to measure physiology in the real world.  We've des...
Research
Opera of the Future

Extending expression, learning, and health through innovations in musical composition, performance, and participation
Post Research

Ariel Noyman's work on CityScope selected for the Young Talent exhibition at Hebei International Industrial Design Week (HIDW)

The “HIDW Young Talent” exhibition addressed three topics: Manufacturing of Tomorrow, Future Craft, and City Catalyst.
Project Research

Theme | Mobility On-Demand

Urban populations around the world are rapidly growing. To improve livability, urban residents must reduce dependency on fossil fuels and...
Project Research

Resilience Across Scales

Resilience Across Scales is a research theme that encompasses the work of a few Media Lab Principal Investigators and their research grou...
Post Research

Introducing a New Class of Creative Tools for Educators: Creative Learning Design Tools

How teaching as a form of creative work can be better empowered with creative tools.
Project Research

[bike] swarm

As bikes navigate city streets after dark, they are often equipped with lights. The lights make the bikes visible to cars or other bikers...
Archived
Project Research

ambienBeat: Mobile tactile biofeedback for subliminal heart rate rhythmic regulation

We present a mobile heart rate regulator—ambienBeat—which provides closed-loop ambient biofeedback via subliminal tactile stimulus based ...
Archived
Project Research

DefeXtiles: 3D printing quasi-woven textiles via underextrusion

OverviewDefeXtiles are thin, flexible textiles of many materials that can quickly be printed into a variety of 3D forms using an inexpens...
Archived
Project Research

Hybrid Sculptures
Archived
Research
Viral Communications

Creating scalable technologies that evolve with user inventiveness
Project Research

Miniaturized Neural System for Chronic, Local Intracerebral Drug Delivery (MiNDS)

Recent advances in medications for neurodegenerative disorders are expanding opportunities for improving the debilitating symptoms suffer...
Article Research

A wearable sensor to help ALS patients communicate

Researchers have designed a skin-like device that can measure small facial movements in patients who have lost the ability to speak.
Research
Tangible Media

Seamlessly coupling the worlds of bits and atoms by giving dynamic physical form to digital information and computation
Publication Research

Self-assembling peptides: from a discovery in a yeast protein to diverse uses and beyond

Zhang, S. (2020) Self-assembling peptides: from a discovery in a yeast protein to diverse uses and beyond. Protein Science DOI:10.1002/pro.3951
Project Research

Floral Cosmonauts: Self-assembling silver dendrite networks in microgravity

Biological neuronal networks are highly complex and interconnected with superior information processing capabilities. Such networks have ...
Thesis Research

Tools that Lower the Floors, Widen the Walls, and Raise the Ceilings for Designing Creative Learning Experiences

Ahmad, Y. (2020). Tools that Lower the Floors, Widen the Walls, and Raise the Ceilings for Designing Creative Learning Experiences. (Masters Thesis). Massachusetts Institute of Technology.
Archived
Project Research

Venous Materials: Towards interactive, fluidic mechanisms

By Hila Mor, Yu Tianyu, Ken Nakagaki, Benjamin Harvey Miller, Yichen Jia, Hiroshi IshiiThe Venous Materials project envisions a new way t...
Archived
Research
Human Dynamics

Exploring how social networks can influence our lives in business, health, governance, and technology adoption and diffusion
Post Research

Andrea Ling's "Design by Decay, Decay by Design" receives STARTS Grand Prize at Ars Electronica '20

Andrea Ling, an alum of the Mediated Matter group, has won the Grand Prize in Artistic Exploration at this year's festival.
Article Research

Canadian architect wins €20,000 STARTS prize

Canadian architect and installation artist Andrea Ling has received the 2020 STARTS Grand Prize in the category of Artistic Exploration.
Archived
Research
Design Fiction

Sparking discussion about the social, cultural, and ethical implications of emerging technologies through design and storytelling
Article Research

Cultivating Creativity and Community in a Design-based Online Course

How might we leverage digital collaboration tools to support teens in building community and engaging in open-ended, design-based work?
Project Research

Learning Creative Learning

Learning Creative Learning is an online course and community of educators, designers, technologists, and tinkerers exploring creative lea...
Research
Responsive Environments

Augmenting and mediating human experience, interaction, and perception with sensor networks
Project Research

HERMITS: Mechanical Shells for Robotic TUIs (Ars Electronica 2020)

'Shells, often found on seashores, exemplifies the absence of existed lives. What if a presence dwells in to animate them?'Proj...
Project Research

Bubble Talk: Translating the presence of modern digital chat into fleeting bubbles

In this project the ephemeral and intangible aspects of human communication are represented by a soap-bubble. The shapeless, intangi...
Project Research

Public Library Innovation Exchange

Public libraries are one of most trusted public institutions in the U.S. and increasingly provide a broad range of education services, ra...
Archived
Research
Civic Media

Creating technology for social change
Project Research

TESSERAE: Self-Assembling Space Architecture

Overview: How will we build the coming generations of Space Architecture—the modules, space ships, and space stations that will ensc...
Archived
Research
Object-Based Media

Changing storytelling, communication, and everyday life through sensing, understanding, and new interface technologies
Archived
Research
Collective Learning

Transforming data into knowledge
Article Research

Speculative machines produce existential wonder

A collaboration between CAST visiting artist Thom Kubli, Hiroshi Ishii, and members of the Tangible Media group.
Article Research

Ekene Ijeoma on drawing and sculpting with data for Friedman Benda's 'Design in Dialogue'

Poetic Justice head Ekene Ijeoma in conversation with Stephen Burks.
Archived
Project Research

DataUSA

Visit DataUSADataUSA is the most comprehensive site visualizing public data for the United States. Through interactive profiles, DataUSA ...
Archived
Article Research

Neri Oxman’s “Material Ecology” | Bio Art and Design

The exhibition has now become a part of the MoMA's ‘Virtual Views’ program due to the pandemic.
Project Research

Living Bits

Living Bits : Opportunities and Challenges for Integrating Living Microorganisms in Human-Computer InteractionThere are trillions of livi...
Project Research

User needs for augmentative communication interfaces

We are working on communication interfaces for people with speech and language disorders, incorporating technologies like physiological s...