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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.""
And I mean that in the good way, not in the bad at sports way.
This inculcation of curiosity and resourcefulness is what makes studying at MIT truly unique. No wonder it is one of the premier educational institutions in the world.
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they couldn't solve the "where do we get chicks from?" problem. or maybe, these oxygen gas bottles are of some use after all..
Why is it I get the feeling that there is a reason these guys have that much time on their hands?
Nice work and all that, but most decent parties at college include three staple ingredients
1) Alcohol
2) Women
3) Alcohol
Though alcohol appears twice this is on purpose, once to get you drunk enough to ask, then a woman to ask, the second to get her drunk enough to agree. Now an automated party system that achieved that... the guys would be millionaires by next Wednesday.
An Eye for an Eye will make the whole world blind - Gandhi
I bet their dorm room still smells like dirty laundry.
Hey, 1989 called, they want their party terms back...
the "off" button.
Be sarcastic if you must, but their next upgrade is to integrate a chick magnet into the system. Activating 'party mode' by default spawns a Babe-Level Management Routine (BALMER), which controls the Magnet. Preset desired peak and sustained chick levels are set in the Application Data Layer, and MIDAS carefully manages the Chick Magnet to maintain the ambient babeness at the level desired for the activity. When the security cameras, IR sensors, or seismographs determine that levels are exceeded, the Magnet is taken off line or dropped to a lower power level (From "Ferrari" to "Porsche" all the way down to "Ford Fairlane").
It all looks very impressive on paper, but they're having trouble getting enough juice to those magnets, and as yet have been unable to give the BALMER anything but a dry run.
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."
Appearantly, these "freshmen" haven't been out of their dorm room since the early 90's
Arrogance is Confidence which lacks integrity. -- me
Someone gets in through remote web access and continually makes it party mode.
sent from my slashdot browser.
I am pretty sure the same button inflates their "girlfriends" as well!
I only look human.
My mother is a halfling and my dad is an ogre, so that makes me an Ogreling
I'm not sure how other folks do it, but in my year in a dorm, I introduced my roommate to my girlfriend's roommate, and they seemed to get along well enough that by the end of the year, girlfriend and roommate had basically traded rooms.
Reality has a liberal bias
In MY day, we had to actually get chicks drunk at parties. Now, these kids just have to press a button.
LK
"Hi. This is my friend, Jack Shit, and you don't know him." - Lord Kano
As a fellow resident of this dorm (East Campus, home of the disco dance floor, time traveler's convention, and numberous other widgets features here at some time) I feel qualified to call you both uniformed and a bit of an ass. :P
This degree of customization is quite common and encouraged here. The building was built in the 20s and its condition very much reflects that. For that reason students are allowed to do pretty much whatever they can get around the fire code. Many rooms feature lofted beds, weird paint schemes and odd lighting. The hallways are covered completely with student painted murals.
If they tear it down tomorrow (or Saturday since that was check-out for the summer) and leave big holes in the walls nobody would know the difference. If they leave it in the next residents will take it over since they'll be the same type of person. Also, most people live on the same floor for all four of their years, many staying in the same room.
My floor, 2E, features a lounge with a lofted couch, hacked together projection system, a water cooled media center, and a 16 processor Alpha (4x ES40) cluster in our kitchen.
You gotta find first gear in your giant robot car
Advice from a mother to her college age, Boston-bound daughter:
"Never go out with an MIT student; they are horrible dates. More than
any other college men, they are only after one thing:
Sleep."
-mkb
...I'll build my own party button. With blackjack. And hookers.