MIT Edgerton Center: Engineering Design Workshop

The Edgerton Center gives students the opportunity to learn by doing and cultivates an overarching ethos of building, learning, and sharing. Founded in 1992 to honor the legacy of Harold "Doc" Edgerton — inventor, entrepreneur, explorer, and MIT professor — the Edgerton Center offers subjects in engineering and imaging, supports student clubs and teams; manages student machine shops, and upholds MIT’s expertise in high-speed and scientific imaging.

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With a year of remote versions of in-person programs behind us, we're excited to run a virtual version of Engineering Design Workshop, integrating the lessons we've learned. With that in mind, we're looking for students and groups a little differently than we have in the past. This year we're asking students to 1) find a group they can work with before our program begins and 2) find a central location and responsible adult willing to help that group.

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While we can't meet in person at MIT, we find that groups are most successful when they can work together. We hope that the pandemic continues to improve into the summer, and that groups will be able to work together in person at a place of their choosing. There is a culture and an enthusiasm we find is built through in-person work. Traditionally, groups of 4 to 5 students are most successful, but 3 and 6 also work well.

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We've also found that shipping parts to individual students is not only difficult, but also makes collective work more complicated. We also had to limit the scope of projects last year without any kind of local adult support. Because of this, we're asking students to help centralize their work. We highly encourage groups to work with their school and find a teacher or administrator willing to support them in this way, and we're happy to help in that conversation and talk about what it has been like at other schools around the world. To the adults looking to support groups in this way, we imagine the time commitment could be as little as an hour a week, mainly supporting safety and logistics.

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We're committed to supporting hands-on learning through EDW this summer. Part of the process will be a group "interview" over Zoom to talk about specifics, to introduce you to our project ideation process, and to let you know about how we do things at Edgerton. Given the changes to the program, price and cost will be announced shortly but, as we've said in the past, cost should not be a barrier for accepted students to take part in EDW.

• This program is for rising 9th through 12th grade students.

• Students must find a group they can work with before the program begins.
• Students must find a central location and responsible adult willing to assist the group.

• The program does not take into account a student's ability to pay when choosing who to accept and, if admitted, the program will accept payment in whatever amount a student can afford.