Kevin Rustagi

Photo: Team Pink and our hovercraft (2nd place!)

I'm currently taking one of MIT's (in my opinion) most awesome classes, 2.009 (Two - Double - Oh - Nine)

Everything at MIT is in numbers.  The 2 stands for Course 2, better known as Mechanical Engineering.  .009 - you guessed it, is the course number.

One of the capstone courses, 2.009 helps us combine mechanical engineering and design skills gained in and out of the classroom in order to make an amazing product.

This really builds on my passion for product design and my work in China this summer.  I'm even taking it a year early to take a followup course only offered every other year. 

This year the theme is Emergency! and my team is developing deployable solutions to issues surrounding that.  I'll definitely post more pictures (between classes right now - will post more later on)

We're slowly narrowing down our product design and that in and of itself is a very interesting process.  How are ideas better than one another, and what about new ideas?  All important questions with key answers.

We get constant feedback, both and encouraging and constructive, which is always helpful.  Though it can sometimes be tough to hear, and it's all about making us better.

But - Kevin - what about this hovercraft thing?!

Well, that's a project we built in less than a hour and a half (bike hooked on later) as an excercise to build team communication and collaboration.

We had races back and forth with multiple riders pedaling as other team members pulled the hovercraft across one of MIT's large building floors. 
Photos / Video will undoubtedly be posted soon on the 2.009 website at http://web.mit.edu/2.009

It was so much fun and we were sooooo close to winning the 2.009 cup, but the teamwork is what counts and it was a ton of fun!

I'm really proud of our team - things came together and everyone was really engaged.

More from MIT later ...