The M.I.T. project that takes place in our institute was born thanks to the English teacher and vice head-teacher of our school, Laura Ridolfi. It consists in welcoming a student from the M.I.T. of Boston to teach a curricular course about robotics and informatic applied to robotics to our students, which will enter the project only if they own at least the B1 Cambridge English Certification. The American student will be hosted by the family of one of our students.
On the 26th of May we had the opportunity to schedule an interview with Matthew Hambacher, the student from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology that 2 years ago came here all the way from Boston to teach our students a course about robotics and robotic intelligence.
Matthew graduated this year and told us that in his time at the M.I.T he got an academic minor on computer science and followed courses about mechanical engineering, building and engineering projects. This year he also worked on an automatic underwater glider, a vehicle for underwater research.
He told us that he first heard of the M.I.T. when he was in second grade and was excited about it ever since and when he had to start thinking about where to go after his high school studies, M.I.T. with its robotics program was on top of the list.
We collected a bunch of questions to learn Matthew’s point of view during his stay here in Terni and his experience in our institute.
Matthew stated that he found the experience as a teacher in our school fun and said that he could tell that the students were happy to be there and fun to interact with. Overall they were very approachable and willing to learn.
He explained that the project started with passing over basic controls and learning how to control the robots they built by Bluetooth via phone and then from there they worked online following with the future project of setting lines on the floor for the robots to follow with automatic driving, without the need of being controlled by a person. They also worked on programming and gas sensors so the robots could have some safety features.
Matthew said that he appreciated the participation in this project and his visit to our home town so we can say that we are just as thankful for giving our school such an opportunity to learn new things and for giving us his time to tell us his point of view of this experience.
Di: Amelie Torricelli – 3 ACM
