Artificial Intelligence (AI) is no longer a futuristic concept but a pivotal part of our daily lives. AI’s applications are vast and transformative, from virtual assistants that help us manage our schedules to advanced algorithms that predict market trends and diagnose diseases. However, this technological advancement…
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Edgerton Center hosts workshop for deaf high school students in STEM
The percentage of deaf and hard-of-hearing individuals who have bachelor’s degrees is 15.2 percent lower than their hearing counterparts, and for those who do have degrees, most are in business and education. Deaf adults with degrees in STEM fields are few and far between. MIT Edgerton Center instructor Amanda Gruhl Mayer ’99, PhD ’08 has set out to bridge this gap by piloting a new MIT workshop called STEAMED (Science, Technology, Engineering, Art, and Math Experience for Deaf and hard-of-hearing students).
The workshop tasked students with building an underwater remotely operated vehicle (ROV), teaching them new skills to build circuits, motors, and frames. At the end of the course, students tested their robots at the Z Center pool. Gruhl Mayer worked with Brian Gibson, a science teacher at Horace Mann School for the Deaf and Hard of Hearing; Edgerton Center instructors Chris Mayer and Christian Cardozo ’18; and MIT student mentors rising senior Ryn Moore and Ruben Castro ’24. With several instructors and mentors at varying levels of American Sign Language (ASL) fluency, ASL interpreters strengthened communication between all participants.
Gruhl Mayer became interested in deaf education when she moved into her first house in 2020 and met her neighbor’s deaf 13-year-old daughter, who was interested in science. Gruhl Mayer wanted to encourage her to delve deeper into STEM subjects. As she learned ASL, Gruhl Mayer quickly discovered that important scientific terms, like “amino acid,” “acceleration,” and “circuit,” lack common signs in ASL because there aren’t enough deaf scientists and engineers for the vocabulary to develop naturally. While pursuing a master’s degree in deaf education at Boston University, she deepened her passion for deaf culture. “I really want to push the pipeline for more deaf scientists and engineers. And I think we need to start with students,” Gruhl Mayer says.
Gruhl Mayer’s students entered the course not knowing exactly what they would be building, and quickly learned how to construct their own ROVs using SeaPerch kits from the MIT Sea Grant program. The ROV project is a favorite at the Edgerton Center for introducing high school students to power tools and circuits, and this is the first time it was presented to deaf students. During the workshop, the students and interpreters developed signs to use for new skills and concepts, like “soldering” and “buoyancy.”
Students waterproofed their motors, built thrusters, and connected them to controllers. They used power tools to create PVC pipe frames with attached foam core to make them neutrally buoyant, then tested the movement of their ROVs in a small tank inside the classroom. Students modified their designs to create unique ROVs, decorating them using lights and colored markers, and took them for a test drive in the Z Center Pool. Students picked up skills quickly and taught each other as they learned, each designing a unique ROV that could move in all directions, navigate through obstacles, and even pick something up off the bottom of the pool.
Brian Gibson, who’s been teaching hands-on science at Horace Mann for 21 years, says, “I’ve enjoyed watching the students become more independent and using different materials and tools that they haven’t used in the past and become pretty proficient with those tools.” The students also enjoyed the increased responsibility. “Typically, we’re not allowed to use certain tools. They don’t offer us much responsibility. And so now, we were able to see how the tools work. I think that opens new opportunities for us,” says Bárbara Silva, a rising junior at the Horace Mann School. Students also appreciated the freedom and creativity that comes with not being graded. “At school, at home, or anywhere, things have to be perfect. But here, you could fail, and then you learn something new,” says rising junior at Newton North High School Lucy Howard-Karp.
Among the takeaways for the Edgerton Center instructors is recognizing the unique challenge of having to use your hands for communication while concurrently building. For example, hearing teachers often said “good job” to students while they were working, which made the students stop their work to watch the interpreter. Students requested that teachers wait for a good stopping point to give them praise, and only interrupt if the students are doing something that needs to be corrected. Gruhl Mayer points out, “Deaf students are just like hearing students. They have the same potential, enthusiasm, work ethic, etc. But there are educational tweaks that need to be made for deaf students, to help them learn in the way that’s best for them.”
Gruhl Mayer’s vision to make STEM accessible for deaf students has the potential to drive discoveries in the science community. “The term is called ‘deaf gain,’” she explains. “Deaf people see the world differently, which gives them a new and fresh perspective. This unique viewpoint drives their creativity and innovation. So many amazing discoveries have been made by deaf scientists and engineers.”
Gruhl Mayer plans to run the workshop again next summer with more participants, hopefully having this year’s students come back as mentors. The students plan to get their fellow classmates excited to sign up by bringing their ROVs to school and showing off what they built.
The Legend Of Zelda: Majora’s Mask Part 21 | Super Replay
After The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time reinvented the series in 3D and became its new gold standard, Nintendo followed up with a surreal sequel in Majora’s Mask. Set two months after the events of Ocarina, Link finds himself transported to an alternate version of Hyrule called Termina and must prevent a very angry moon from crashing into the Earth over the course of three constantly repeating days. Majora’s Mask’s unique structure and bizarre tone have earned it legions of passionate defenders and detractors, and one long-time Zelda fan is going to experience it for the first time to see where he lands on that spectrum.
Join Marcus Stewart and Kyle Hilliard today and each Friday on Twitch at 2:00 p.m. CT as they gradually work their way through the entire game until Termina is saved. Archived episodes will be uploaded each Saturday on our second YouTube channel Game Informer Shows, which you can watch both above and by clicking the links below.
Part 1 – Plenty of Time
Part 2 – The Bear
Part 3 – Deku Ball Z
Part 4 – Pig Out
Part 5 – The Was a Bad Choice!
Part 6 – Ray Darmani
Part 7 – Curl and Pound
Part 8 – Almost a Flamethrower
Part 9 – Take Me Higher
Part 10 – Time Juice
Part 11 – The One About Joey
Part 12 – Ugly Country
Part 13 – The Sword is the Chicken Hat
Part 14 – Harvard for Hyrule
Part 15 – Keeping it Pure
Part 16 – Fishy Business
Part 17 – Eight-Legged Freaks
Part 18 – The Side Quest Episode
Part 19 – Go Planet
Part 20 – Keeping Up with the Gormans
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If you enjoy our livestreams but haven’t subscribed to our Twitch channel, know that doing so not only gives you notifications and access to special emotes. You’ll also be granted entry to the official Game Informer Discord channel, where our welcoming community members, moderators, and staff gather to talk games, entertainment, food, and organize hangouts! Be sure to also follow our second YouTube channel, Game Informer Shows, to watch other Replay episodes as well as Twitch archives of GI Live and more.
MIT Global SCALE Network expands by adding center at Loughborough University
The MIT Center for Transportation and Logistics (MIT CTL) and Loughborough University have announced the addition of the United Kingdom Supply Chain and Logistics Excellence (UK SCALE) Centre at Loughborough University, one of the top 20 research-led universities in the U.K., to the MIT Global Supply Chain and Logistics Excellence (SCALE) Network. The launch of the U.K. SCALE center marks a significant expansion of the network, an international alliance of leading research and education centers dedicated to driving supply chain and logistics innovation through global collaboration.
With the inclusion of Loughborough, the MIT Global SCALE Network now comprises five centers of excellence across four continents. These centers pool their expertise and collaborate on research projects that address real-world supply chain and logistics challenges, helping companies worldwide navigate an increasingly complex business environment.
“Loughborough University’s exceptional research capabilities and commitment to supply chain innovation make it a valuable addition to the MIT Global SCALE Network,” says Professor Yossi Sheffi, director of MIT CTL. “Their expertise will enhance our collective ability to create cutting-edge solutions and educate the next generation of supply chain leaders.”
Loughborough University will join the network alongside existing centers: MIT CTL, the Zaragoza Logistics Center (ZLC, Spain), the Center for Latin-American Logistics Innovation (CLI, Colombia), the Luxembourg Centre for Logistics and Supply Chain Management (LCL), and the Ningbo China Institute for Supply Chain Innovation (NISCI). The four university centers (MIT, ZLC, LCL, and NISCI) offer their own master’s programs, while CLI offers a graduate certificate in logistics and supply chain management. Together, these centers offer a comprehensive curriculum in supply chain management, fostering a global community of bold thinkers from both industry and academia.
“Joining the MIT Global SCALE Network is a tremendous opportunity for Loughborough University,” says Angelika Zimmermann, program lead for management MSc Loughborough University. “We are excited to collaborate with world-leading institutions and contribute to the advancement of supply chain knowledge and practice on a global scale.”
The MIT Global SCALE Network was established in 2003 with the inauguration of the Zaragoza Logistics Center in Spain. Since then, it has expanded to include centers in Colombia, Luxembourg, China, and now the United Kingdom. The network supports over a dozen educational programs, engages more than 80 researchers and faculty, partners with 150 corporations, and boasts an alumni network of over 1,200 professionals worldwide.
Organizations partnering with the MIT Global SCALE Network gain unparalleled access to expertise, innovative research, and a unique forum for knowledge exchange, while the network’s centers and students benefit from rich industry engagement and collaborative opportunities.
For over five decades, MIT CTL has been a world leader in supply chain management research and education. The center collaborates with industry through its corporate outreach program, turning innovative research into commercial applications. Consistently ranked first in business programs for logistics and supply chain management, MIT CTL’s supply chain management master’s program was the first of its kind, offering an intensive degree in just 10 months.
Loughborough University is one of the top 20 research-led universities in the U.K., renowned for its excellence in education and research. The university’s commitment to innovation and collaboration makes it a significant contributor to the field of supply chain and logistics.
For more information, contact Benjy Kantor or Dan McCool at MIT CTL, or Martyn Edwards at Loughborough University.
When learning at MIT means studying thousands of miles away
This summer, a group of MIT students traveled to Sicily’s southeastern coast to learn about threats to local communities related to sea level rise. They visited ancient archeological sites that are in danger of being wiped out, and worked with local college students on preservation and adaptation techniques.
This past January, another group of MIT students travelled to South Africa to study the biology of HIV and learn about a local community’s public health challenges concerning the disease. Another group travelled to Spain and lived with local families in Madrid while studying Spanish literature, culture, and history.
Some lessons can’t be taught in the classroom. That’s the reasoning behind the MIT International Science and Technology Initiatives (MISTI) Global Classrooms program.
Led by MIT faculty members, some Global Classrooms focus on grand challenges such as climate, sustainability, and health, while others deal with language, culture, and society. But all Global Classrooms benefit from their location: MIT students gain a unique perspective on the topics they study by engaging with the local community.
“MISTI exists because we believe every graduate of MIT should be capable of connecting to and learning from colleagues all over the world,” MISTI Executive Director April Julich Perez says. “The types of problems MIT graduates will work on in their careers will require them to have an understanding of how people in different cultures might look at a problem and go about trying to solve it. This can’t be fully realized in a class on our Cambridge campus but requires an authentic global experience. We want to help our students widen their apertures to see new ways to design solutions within regional contexts. Global Classrooms help make that possible.”
Helping faculty teach
Global Classrooms arose organically from a campus need. For many years, MIT faculty have been taking students on trips around the world to learn from different communities. MISTI, with its expertise in designing global internships and other immersive learning experiences abroad, would often be tapped by faculty informally to provide their expertise.
About two years ago, MISTI decided to formalize this process by launching the MISTI Global Classrooms program. The program offers a variety of modalities to meet a range of needs across the Institute, For example, if a faculty member on campus is interested in taking students abroad, MISTI can provide advising and resources around handling travel logistics, safety, and learning in new places. On the other end of the spectrum, MISTI can serve as an implementation partner for Global Classrooms. In this capacity, MISTI program managers work with faculty members to structure their programs and help with finding partners abroad, student recruitment, selection, housing, and more. MISTI can also provide funding for certain Global Classrooms or help faculty members find funding.
An example is a Global Classroom in South Africa that is led by Bruce Walker, who is a professor of the practice in the Department of Biology as well as a core member of the Ragon Institute. Walker’s course has been going on in one form or another for more than 20 years. Since 2017, MISTI has partnered with Walker to provide support in a variety of ways.
Through the class, HST. 434 (Evolution of an Epidemic), students from across the Institute meet traditional healers, which are the first line of care for many locals. They also meet with mothers and their HIV-infected babies, young women at risk, local doctors and researchers, and more.
“It’s really important to get a chance to talk to young women at risk and really understand what their challenges are,” Walker says. “A lot of that has to do with lack of empowerment.”
Another recently launched Global Classroom is addressing sustainability in the Amazon. Andre Hamelberg ’24 traveled to Manaus, Brazil, in the Amazon region during the January Independent Activities Period (IAP) this past year. Working with local college students, he designed more sustainable packaging based on locally available materials.
“We had to find our way to communicate with each other, which was a really unique experience,” Hamelberg says. “A lot of us became really good friends. That will always stick with me.”
The experience led Hamelberg to return to Manaus this summer, where he is working with a local plastic manufacturer. It also changed Hamelberg’s perspective on his career.
“I have a long-term dream of becoming an entrepreneur, and I’m hoping I can work on improving sustainability,” Hamelberg says. “That was shaped from the Global Classroom program.”
A highlight for many students is getting an up-close look at the local culture.
“The program was a special opportunity,” Hamelberg says. “We really got to ingrain ourselves in the culture here, which I think was essential to our learning. We got the chance to be part of a small, tight-knit community.”
Helping students find their paths
MISTI’s team is careful to note that Global Classrooms are learning experiences rather than humanitarian missions.
“It’s not like we’re deploying students to go fix things all over the world,” Julich Perez says. “We’re deploying students to go learn about the nature of these challenges from local practitioners, researchers, faculty, and students. MISTI is very much trying to educate students and give them the skills to become changemakers in their future careers.”
Much of that learning is enabled by the setting of the Global Classroom.
“For every Global Classroom, the location is critical,” Julich Perez says. “For instance, if students are studying hydrology, we have a Global Classroom in Venice where students are studying the system that mitigates the sea level rise and its impact on the city. It’s very important for them to go and see the system for themselves and to work with local students on that project. Global Classroom is about that in-situ learning.”
Walker has seen firsthand how exposing students to problems can inspire them to contribute to solutions. He says the experience in his class has driven many Global Classroom alumni to work in public health.
“There’s no substitute for talking to the people that are actually being impacted by a disease,” Walker says. “It’s something that you don’t get in the classroom in terms of student understanding and seeing for themselves what the facilities look like, how constrained they are, chatting with people their own age that are in desperate situations. It opens up a whole new perspective.”
The Global Classrooms program also aligns well with MIT’s mission of equipping students to serve the world, says Julich Perez.
“MIT is all about solving big challenges, and the Global Classroom program is helping students understand those challenges and giving them the skills to be able to solve them in the future,” Julich Perez says.
New transistor’s superlative properties could have broad electronics applications
In 2021, a team led by MIT physicists reported creating a new ultrathin ferroelectric material, or one where positive and negative charges separate into different layers. At the time they noted the material’s potential for applications in computer memory and much more. Now the same core team and colleagues — including two from the lab next door — have built a transistor with that material and shown that its properties are so useful that it could change the world of electronics.
Although the team’s results are based on a single transistor in the lab, “in several aspects its properties already meet or exceed industry standards” for the ferroelectric transistors produced today, says Pablo Jarillo-Herrero, the Cecil and Ida Green Professor of Physics, who led the work with professor of physics Raymond Ashoori. Both are also affiliated with the Materials Research Laboratory.
“In my lab we primarily do fundamental physics. This is one of the first, and perhaps most dramatic, examples of how very basic science has led to something that could have a major impact on applications,” Jarillo-Herrero says.
Says Ashoori, “When I think of my whole career in physics, this is the work that I think 10 to 20 years from now could change the world.”
Among the new transistor’s superlative properties:
- It can switch between positive and negative charges — essentially the ones and zeros of digital information — at very high speeds, on nanosecond time scales. (A nanosecond is a billionth of a second.)
- It is extremely tough. After 100 billion switches it still worked with no signs of degradation.
- The material behind the magic is only billionths of a meter thick, one of the thinnest of its kind in the world. That, in turn, could allow for much denser computer memory storage. It could also lead to much more energy-efficient transistors because the voltage required for switching scales with material thickness. (Ultrathin equals ultralow voltages.)
The work is reported in a recent issue of Science. The co-first authors of the paper are Kenji Yasuda, now an assistant professor at Cornell University, and Evan Zalys-Geller, now at Atom Computing. Additional authors are Xirui Wang, an MIT graduate student in physics; Daniel Bennett and Efthimios Kaxiras of Harvard University; Suraj S. Cheema, an assistant professor in MIT’s Department of Electrical Engineering and Computer Science and an affiliate of the Research Laboratory of Electronics; and Kenji Watanabe and Takashi Taniguchi of the National Institute for Materials Science in Japan.
What they did
In a ferroelectric material, positive and negative charges spontaneously head to different sides, or poles. Upon the application of an external electric field, those charges switch sides, reversing the polarization. Switching the polarization can be used to encode digital information, and that information will be nonvolatile, or stable over time. It won’t change unless an electric field is applied. For a ferroelectric to have broad application to electronics, all of this needs to happen at room temperature.
The new ferroelectric material reported in Science in 2021 is based on atomically thin sheets of boron nitride that are stacked parallel to each other, a configuration that doesn’t exist in nature. In bulk boron nitride, the individual layers of boron nitride are instead rotated by 180 degrees.
It turns out that when an electric field is applied to this parallel stacked configuration, one layer of the new boron nitride material slides over the other, slightly changing the positions of the boron and nitrogen atoms. For example, imagine that each of your hands is composed of only one layer of cells. The new phenomenon is akin to pressing your hands together then slightly shifting one above the other.
“So the miracle is that by sliding the two layers a few angstroms, you end up with radically different electronics,” says Ashoori. The diameter of an atom is about 1 angstrom.
Another miracle: “nothing wears out in the sliding,” Ashoori continues. That’s why the new transistor could be switched 100 billion times without degrading. Compare that to the memory in a flash drive made with conventional materials. “Each time you write and erase a flash memory, you get some degradation,” says Ashoori. “Over time, it wears out, which means that you have to use some very sophisticated methods for distributing where you’re reading and writing on the chip.” The new material could make those steps obsolete.
A collaborative effort
Yasuda, the co-first author of the current Science paper, applauds the collaborations involved in the work. Among them, “we [Jarillo-Herrero’s team] made the material and, together with Ray [Ashoori] and [co-first author] Evan [Zalys-Geller], we measured its characteristics in detail. That was very exciting.” Says Ashoori, “many of the techniques in my lab just naturally applied to work that was going on in the lab next door. It’s been a lot of fun.”
Ashoori notes that “there’s a lot of interesting physics behind this” that could be explored. For example, “if you think about the two layers sliding past each other, where does that sliding start?” In addition, says Yasuda, could the ferroelectricity be triggered with something other than electricity, like an optical pulse? And is there a fundamental limit to the amount of switches the material can make?
Challenges remain. For example, the current way of producing the new ferroelectrics is difficult and not conducive to mass manufacturing. “We made a single transistor as a demonstration. If people could grow these materials on the wafer scale, we could create many, many more,” says Yasuda. He notes that different groups are already working to that end.
Concludes Ashoori, “There are a few problems. But if you solve them, this material fits in so many ways into potential future electronics. It’s very exciting.”
This work was supported by the U.S. Army Research Office, the MIT/Microsystems Technology Laboratories Samsung Semiconductor Research Fund, the U.S. National Science Foundation, the Gordon and Betty Moore Foundation, the Ramon Areces Foundation, the Basic Energy Sciences program of the U.S. Department of Energy, the Japan Society for the Promotion of Science, and the Ministry of Education, Culture, Sports, Science and Technology (MEXT) of Japan.
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Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: Splintered Fate Review – Radical Repetition – Game Informer
The Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles starred in several iconic video games throughout the franchise’s 40-year history, but none are more beloved than the beat ’em up entries like the 1989 arcade game and Turtles in Time. However, that genre often lacks the depth modern gamers desire. Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: Splintered Fate takes various cues from recent popular games – specifically Supergiant’s smash hit, Hades – en route to modernizing the action-packed hack-and-slash gameplay the Turtles have been known for since their earliest days in the medium. The result is a fun roguelike full of meaningful progression and engaging action that doesn’t soar quite as high as the games that inspired it.
After a mysterious captor abducts Master Splinter, you control one of the four iconic turtle brothers on a quest to get him back. Each playable character possesses different basic combos, special attacks, and tools, allowing you to pick a foundation to build upon as you progress through each run. Leonardo’s average range is complemented nicely by his ability to toss shurikens and gain an extra charge on his special, while Donatello’s long range is offset by being a tad stiffer, but his tool also recharges 80 percent faster (after all, he does do machines). I loved Michelangelo’s sweeping nunchucks and the chance to land multiple hits on a single strike, but Raphael’s grappling hook that pulls enemies closer and higher critical damage quickly made him my main. You’ll have plenty of time to experiment to find your right fit, as each time you die, you start back in the Turtles’ lair to start the run anew.
Each run plays out in similar fashion: You start by choosing a skill like additional dash charges, a better chance to dodge, or an enhancement to your selected turtle’s special ability. You then fight through room after room of enemies ranging from rats and Mousers to Foot Clan ninjas and fellow mutants. Each faction brings different attacks, requiring slightly different approaches, but the action typically consists of dashing around the arena to avoid incoming attacks while working towards clearing the room. Combat feels great, with each attack in your arsenal feeling like an impactful part of a successful and fun strategy. This is particularly true when Elite enemies drop in, like a giant StockGen robot or special elemental Foot assassins.
Rooms typically don’t take long to clear. When the repetition begins to set in from successive runs, I often find enjoyment in trying out new combos or simply getting through the earliest rooms as quickly as possible. Testing out new builds or setting your own challenges are fun, but it doesn’t change that you’re still completing the same rooms and facing the same bosses on repeat. Splintered Fate attempts to remedy this by introducing new variants of the handful of bosses in the game, but regardless of whether the first boss suddenly summons more minions or the second boss now uses flame attacks, I still dreaded facing them for the 20th time. Even the gauntlet challenges, unlocked after completing your first run, do little to diversify the experience. Splintered Fate’s co-op, which can be played locally or online, shakes things up by letting you combine the Turtles’ tools and abilities, but the structure remains the same.
Obviously, a crucial element of the roguelike formula is the upward trajectory of both your skills as a player and your character’s strengths through permanent upgrades. TMNT: Splintered Fate handles this admirably; I always felt I was improving run over run, aided by the permanent upgrades unlocked through various currencies. This satisfying loop is, unfortunately, hindered by the sheer number of currencies you need to keep track of.
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In addition to Scrap, the in-run currency used for temporary upgrades, you receive two distinct permanent currencies to upgrade different parts of the experience; one lets you upgrade the economy, including the amount of Scrap dropped by enemies and more powerful upgrades offered after beating rooms, while the other permanently improves your character’s attributes like attack damage and health. However, some upgrades also require special items dropped by bosses, of which there are several, in conjunction with the permanent currencies. If it sounds confusing, that’s because it is. I don’t mind having more stringent requirements to unlock higher-level upgrades, but when a game requires me to constantly reference a help screen to know what each of its more-than-nine currencies does and how to obtain them, it should serve as a warning to the developers that the system has gone too far.
Despite the overt repetition, both by design and through over-design, Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: Splintered Fate effectively channels the spirit of the most well-liked games that have come before it in the franchise. Though I sometimes succumbed to frustration after falling short during a promising run, the experience only galvanized me to excitedly take what I learned from my failures into the next run.
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As the adoption of artificial intelligence (AI) accelerates, large language models (LLMs) serve a significant need across different domains. LLMs excel in advanced natural language processing (NLP) tasks, automated content generation, intelligent search, information retrieval, language translation, and personalized customer interactions. The two latest examples are…