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Freshman MIT Students Automate Dorm Room
Inessa writes "Two freshman MIT students have automated their dorm room, complete with a big red party button which generates an instant party. Their custom-engineered system is called MIDAS, the Multi-Function In Dorm Automation System. According to the MIT News office, "Gone are the light switches and glaring fluorescent lights of a typical dorm room. Zack Anderson and RJ Ryan's room has several lighting schemes, remote web access, voice activation, a security system, electric blinds and more ... With the touch of one red button, their dorm room becomes a rave. The lights go out, the blinds close, the displays read, "feel the energy" as a voice repeats the same phrase over a deep bass beat.""
You can watch a video here of it in action.
Quickies. Empty classrooms. The shower. Behind the bushes. Right on the main campus lawn if she has the right kind of skirt or dress... not that I'd know about THAT one. :-)
Usually you can pay extra to ditch the roommate, but this may involve a much longer walk to class. If the school is uncrowded and/or you claim to have some sort of mental issue (Asperger's, severe ADD, etc.) you might be able to get a regular double to yourself, with or without paying double.
Many places have dorms for married students, regularly visited by the stork.
It's all a nice setup, but when happens when these kids have to move out of that dorm? (Due to a pile of dirty laundry growing legs and chewing on wires)
If they want, they don't have to move out for three years. On most halls at East Campus, you can squat your room as long as you want (except that they'll probably have to keep squatting it as a double).
I bet everything has been screwed or nailed in, modified and altered to accommodate all this equipment. Who allowed them to do this?
Joe Graham. ("Kids making illegal modifications to their rooms? I'm on it!")
Last time I checked you weren't allowed to mess around with dorm rooms.
At East Campus, you actually are allowed to mess around with dorm rooms. Murals are painted everywhere, and all sorts of cool shit happens. The building is so old that nobody cares anymore, except for the Cambridge Fire Department. And if you keep the room's door locked during inspection, they don't have to know about it.
Nice system and all, but -10 practicality. Maybe it would have worked better in a house or apartment. They should have worked more in how it looked and how it was to be set up instead of just building it.
Yeah, but by the time they live in a house or apartment, they won't have the free time to do this kind of stuff. Heck, next term they probably won't have that kind of time.
Yup - and If you check his resume, he went to Beverly Hills High...... Money is most likely not an issue.