Online courses directory (2511)

Welcome to 2.007! This course is a first subject in engineering design. With your help, this course will be a great learning experience exposing you to interesting material, challenging you to think deeply, and providing skills useful in professional practice. A major element of the course is design of a robot to participate in a challenge that changes from year to year. This year, the theme is cleaning up the planet as inspired by the movie Wall-E.

From its beginnings in 1970, the 2.007 final project competition has grown into an Olympics of engineering.  See this MIT News story for more background, a photo gallery, and videos about this course.

This course introduces you to modern manufacturing with four areas of emphasis: manufacturing processes, equipment/control, systems, and design for manufacturing. The course exposes you to integration of engineering and management disciplines for determining manufacturing rate, cost, quality and flexibility. Topics include process physics, equipment design and automation/control, quality, design for manufacturing, industrial management, and systems design and operation. Labs are integral parts of the course, and expose you to various manufacturing disciplines and practices.

This course is an introduction to the fundamental aspects of science and engineering necessary for exploring, observing, and utilizing the oceans. Hands-on projects focus on instrumentation in the marine environment and the design of ocean observatories for ocean monitoring and exploration. Topics include acoustics, sound speed and refraction, sounds generated by ships and marine animals, sonar systems and their principles of operation, hydrostatic behavior of floating and submerged bodies geared towards ocean vehicle design, stability of ocean vessels, and the application of instrumentation and electronics in the marine environment. Students work with sensor systems and deploy them in the field to gather and analyze real world data.

This course covers the development of the fundamental equations of fluid mechanics and their simplifications for several areas of marine hydrodynamics and the application of these principles to the solution of engineering problems. Topics include the principles of conservation of mass, momentum and energy, lift and drag forces, laminar and turbulent flows, dimensional analysis, added mass, and linear surface waves, including wave velocities, propagation phenomena, and descriptions of real sea waves. Wave forces on structures are treated in the context of design and basic seakeeping analysis of ships and offshore platforms. Geophysical fluid dynamics will also be addressed including distributions of salinity, temperature, and density; heat balance in the ocean; major ocean circulations and geostrophic flows; and the influence of wind stress. Experimental projects conducted in ocean engineering laboratories illustrating concepts taught in class, including ship resistance and model testing, lift and drag forces on submerged bodies, and vehicle propulsion.

This course covers the complete cycle of designing an ocean system using computational design tools for the conceptual and preliminary design stages. Students complete the projects in teams with each student responsible for a specific subsystem. Lectures cover such topics as hydrodynamics; structures; power and thermal aspects of ocean vehicles; environment, materials, and construction for ocean use; and generation and evaluation of design alternatives. The course focuses on innovative design concepts chosen from high-speed ships, submersibles, autonomous vehicles, and floating and submerged deep-water offshore platforms. Lectures on ethics in engineering practice are included, and instruction and practice in oral and written communication is provided.

This class introduces elementary programming concepts including variable types, data structures, and flow control. After an introduction to linear algebra and probability, it covers numerical methods relevant to mechanical engineering, including approximation (interpolation, least squares and statistical regression), integration, solution of linear and nonlinear equations, ordinary differential equations, and deterministic and probabilistic approaches. Examples are drawn from mechanical engineering disciplines, in particular from robotics, dynamics, and structural analysis. Assignments require MATLAB^® programming.

This course develops the fundamentals of feedback control using linear transfer function system models. Topics covered include analysis in time and frequency domains; design in the s-plane (root locus) and in the frequency domain (loop shaping); describing functions for stability of certain non-linear systems; extension to state variable systems and multivariable control with observers; discrete and digital hybrid systems and use of z-plane design. Students will complete an extended design case study. Students taking the graduate version (2.140) will attend the recitation sessions and complete additional assignments.

2.51 is a 12-unit subject, serving as the Mechanical Engineering Department's advanced undergraduate course in heat and mass transfer. The prerequisites for this course are the undergraduate courses in thermodynamics and fluid mechanics, specifically Thermal Fluids Engineering I and Thermal Fluids Engineering II or their equivalents. This course covers problems of heat and mass transfer in greater depth and complexity than is done in those courses and incorporates many subjects that are not included or are treated lightly in those courses; analysis is given greater emphasis than the use of correlations. Course 2.51 is directed at undergraduates having a strong interest in thermal science and graduate students who have not previously studied heat transfer.

This course introduces the fundamentals of machine tool and computer tool use. Students work with a variety of machine tools including the bandsaw, milling machine, and lathe. Instruction given on MATLAB®, MAPLE®, XESS™, and CAD. Emphasis is on problem solving, not programming or algorithmic development. Assignments are project-oriented relating to mechanical engineering topics. It is recommended that students take this subject in the first IAP after declaring the major in Mechanical Engineering.

This course was co-created by Prof. Douglas Hart and Dr. Kevin Otto.

This is an engineering laboratory subject for mechanical engineering juniors and seniors. Major emphasis is on interplay between analytical and experimental methods in solution of research and development problems. Communication (written and oral) of results is also a strong component of the course. Groups of two or three students work together on three projects during the term.

This course provides an introduction to optical science with elementary engineering applications. Topics covered in geometrical optics include: ray-tracing, aberrations, lens design, apertures and stops, radiometry and photometry. Topics covered in wave optics include: basic electrodynamics, polarization, interference, wave-guiding, Fresnel and Fraunhofer diffraction, image formation, resolution, space-bandwidth product. Analytical and numerical tools used in optical design are emphasized. Graduate students are required to complete assignments with stronger analytical content, and an advanced design project.

This course is an introduction to designing mechatronic systems, which require integration of the mechanical and electrical engineering disciplines within a unified framework. There are significant laboratory-based design experiences. Topics covered in the course include: Low-level interfacing of software with hardware; use of high-level graphical programming tools to implement real-time computation tasks; digital logic; analog interfacing and power amplifiers; measurement and sensing; electromagnetic and optical transducers; control of mechatronic systems.

Introduce students to the creative design process, based on the scientific method and peer review, by application of fundamental principles and learning to complete projects according to schedule and within budget. Subject relies on active learning through a major team-based design-and-build project focused on the need for a new consumer product identified by each team. Topics to be learned while teams create, design, build, and test their product ideas include formulating strategies, concepts and modules, and estimation, concept selection, machine elements, design for manufacturing, visual thinking, communication, teamwork, and professional responsibilities.

This class is jointly sponsored by the MIT Museum, Massachusetts Bay Maritime Artisans, the Department of Mechanical Engineering's Center for Ocean Engineering, and the Department of Architecture. The course teaches the fundamental steps in traditional boat design and demonstrates connections between craft and modern methods. Instructors provide vessel design orientation and then students carve their own shape ideas in the form of a wooden half-hull model. Experts teach the traditional skills of visualizing and carving your model in this phase of the class. After the models are completed, a practicing naval architect guides students in translating shape from models into a lines plan. The final phase of the class is a comparative analysis of the designs generated by the group.

This course is offered during the Independent Activities Period (IAP), which is a special 4-week term at MIT that runs from the first week of January until the end of the month.

This course is taken by mechanical engineering majors during their senior year to prepare a detailed thesis proposal under the guidance of staff from the Writing Program. The thesis proposal must bear the endorsement of the thesis supervisor and indicate the number of units planned.

This course is offered during the Independent Activities Period (IAP), which is a special 4-week term at MIT that runs from the first week of January until the end of the month.

This course forms an introduction to a selection of mathematical topics that are not covered in traditional mechanical engineering curricula, such as differential geometry, integral geometry, discrete computational geometry, graph theory, optimization techniques, calculus of variations and linear algebra. The topics covered in any particular year depend on the interest of the students and instructor. Emphasis is on basic ideas and on applications in mechanical engineering. This year, the subject focuses on selected topics from linear algebra and the calculus of variations. It is aimed mainly (but not exclusively) at students aiming to study mechanics (solid mechanics, fluid mechanics, energy methods etc.), and the course introduces some of the mathematical tools used in these subjects. Applications are related primarily (but not exclusively) to the microstructures of crystalline solids.

This course begins with the foundations of 3D elasticity, fluid and elastic wave equations, elastic and plastic waves in rods and beams, waves in plates, and dynamics and acoustics of cylindrical shells. The course considers acoustic fluids effects such as radiation and scattering by submerged plates and shells, and interaction between structural elements. Finally, it covers the response of plates and shells to high-intensity loads, dynamic plasticity and fracture, and structural damage caused by implosive and impact loads.

This course was originally offered in Course 13 (Department of Ocean Engineering) as 13.811. In 2005, ocean engineering subjects became part of Course 2 (Department of Mechanical Engineering), and this course was renumbered 2.067.

This course examines wave equations for fluid and visco-elastic media, wave-theory formulations of acoustic source radiation and seismo-acoustic propagation in stratified ocean waveguides, and Wavenumber Integration and Normal Mode methods for propagation in plane-stratified media. Also covered are Seismo-Acoustic modeling of seabeds and ice covers, seismic interface and surface waves in a stratified seabed, Parabolic Equation and Coupled Mode approaches to propagation in range-dependent ocean waveguides, numerical modeling of target scattering and reverberation clutter in ocean waveguides, and ocean ambient noise modeling. Students develop propagation models using all the numerical approaches relevant to state-of-the-art acoustic research.

This course was originally offered in Course 13 (Department of Ocean Engineering) as 13.853. In 2005, ocean engineering subjects became part of Course 2 (Department of Mechanical Engineering), and this course was renumbered 2.068.

This course is a comprehensive introduction to control system synthesis in which the digital computer plays a major role, reinforced with hands-on laboratory experience. The course covers elements of real-time computer architecture; input-output interfaces and data converters; analysis and synthesis of sampled-data control systems using classical and modern (state-space) methods; analysis of trade-offs in control algorithms for computation speed and quantization effects. Laboratory projects emphasize practical digital servo interfacing and implementation problems with timing, noise, and nonlinear devices.

The course covers the basic techniques for evaluating the maximum forces and loads over the life of a marine structure or vehicle, so as to be able to design its basic configuration. Loads and motions of small and large structures and their short-term and long-term statistics are studied in detail and many applications are presented in class and studied in homework and laboratory sessions. Issues related to seakeeping of ships are studied in detail. The basic equations and issues of maneuvering are introduced at the end of the course. Three laboratory sessions demonstrate the phenomena studied and provide experience with experimental methods and data processing.

This course was originally offered in Course 13 (Ocean Engineering) as 13.42.