Item #16 - Visit the MIT Museum

"Life moves pretty fast.  If you don't stop and look around once in awhile, you might miss it."
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 I grew up in Sterling Heights, MI. My parents lived in the same house until I was 16, and then at the next one until I was 27 (only then did they break my heart and move out of The Heights. I now feel somewhat homeless going back to to visit now. Sigh). Anyway, if you know the suburban Detroit area at all, you know it pretty much ALL LOOKS ALIKE. The entire area is a giant grid, separated by main streets a mile apart, and as flat as can be. Granted, some areas might be more run down than others, but there's only so many differences between the White Castle on 8 Mile and the White Castle on 23 Mile (though I've been to both, and they're both exquisite. Feasts fit for kings). Since the entire area looked alike, I always gave people directions to the new/second house based on landmarks.

I end up having to due to same exact thing in Boston. However, it's less that all the areas look alike, and more because there's NO DAMN STREET SIGNS. The first time my mom came out here, she drove with my sister. I made sure to give them both street sign and landmark directions. Left at the Mobil. Right at Burger King. However, my mother, who is never wrong, spent an hour driving around West Newton before calling me to figure out where the hell she was. Episodes of Fear Factor could be based around my mother trying to drive a van of people to a restaurant in the North End, and seeing who tucks and rolls last.

The main landmark I always used for directions to turn off the main street was a restaurant called The Brewery. Big sign. Very lit up at night. 

 Thanks Google Street View

According to the Googles, The Brewery was a mere 0.3 miles from my house. And due to the vast suburban expanse of Detroit, 0.3 miles there is like a half block away in Boston, or basically living 5 stories above a restaurant in Manhattan. Within 3 months of living there, the bartenders should know you by name. Within 6 months, you should have a Norm Peterson-like tab.

However, in the 11 years my parents lived at that house, after constantly using it as the basis of my directions to my house, I ate at The Brewery  . . . well, never. Besides my parents' fridge, it was literally the cloest place to get food, and yet I never went there. 

After checking out their website, it may be a good thing I never did. What kind of place calls themselves The Brewery and doesn't have a beer list on their website? 

I don't think my parents ever went there either. For some reason, they need to drive a minimum distance to enjoy their meal. Also, they usually need a restaurant to have at least 1,000 nationwide locations to enjoy their meal - they truly love the authentic taste of the Australian Outback (seriously, the last time they visited out here, I made sure to veto all chains before they even arrived). 

Everyone has these places though that are staring them right in their face that they've never been (just ask Babu Bhatt about his Dream Cafe). And the MIT Museum has been one of those places for me. I've drank in Central Square more than any other place in Boston, and I've walked by that museum 20+ times and everytime said "cool, MIT has a museum. I'm a nerd. I bet it's awesome." 7 years of living in Boston later, and I've still never been there. So this past Saturday, on the first weekend without the lack-of-a-social-life safety net of football, I finally decided to check it out.

On the whole, the museum was kind of hit and miss. 33% of the time, it was a vast miss. That 33% was basically MIT giving itself a pat on the back for a job well done over the years, and using the museum as a giant ad for itself right now.  "Hey, look at our faculty! Look at the projects were doing! They'll be life changing, we swear. No Segways around this campus. We're smart!" Meh, could have done without that.

The middling 33% was the more literal "MIT museum." A whole lot of their past on display. Lots of old robots. Cool in theory, but since they weren't actually functioning, you can only see so many metal limbs and wires encased in glass before you're ready to move onto the next exhibit.

The last 33% was the cool 33% (the remaining 1% is attributed to the bathroom. It was fine. Nothing fancy, but I approve).  They had one exhibition that was just holograms.  Some were of the bad-ass variety, including a life-size Bob Marley hologram, while some were of the . . . creepy? . . . variety

The bad-ass variety (same window, different angles)

 The creepy variety

But the best part of the trip was the mechanical engineering nerdstravaganza entitled "Gestural Engineering: The Sculpture of Arthur Ganson." What? You haven't heard of Arthur Ganson? Phhht. Simpleton. Well, neither had I until the exhibit, but now, he's like my hero. Why? Well, he basically made a bunch of mechanism sculptures, and designing mechanisms is basically my favorite part of my job. Except this Ganson guy takes his shit TO THE EXTREME! Or at least as extreme as you can make a bunch of small welded wire sculptures that run on tiny motors. A few examples:

This one makes a chair, destroys it, and then reassembles it. It's fantastic, and you can see it in motion here.

This one was nothing more than an elaborate gear chain . . . a gear train long enough that the amount of time it will take for the last gear to make a full rotation is basically equal to the amount of time the universe has been around. For the non-scientists - that's really freakin long.

 And these were also pretty sweet, but you can only capture so much of a moving sculpture in a stagnant JPG

So if you are an engineer in Boston, and any sort of mechanism occasionally interests you, get your ass down the the MIT Museum, fork over $7.50, and enjoy the show, as this was probably the single coolest, and most relate-able, exhibit I've ever been to.