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.""

Re:What a couple of nerds...

[Ruud Althuizen]

So to get yourself mentioned on slashdot you only need to invent something so you can be lazy? Interesting indeed...

How the hell do you afford all that stuff?

[Orange Goblin]

As a student, I don't have the money to go buying lots of expensive hardware (but I wish I did...) so how do these guys? Oh, and the text to phone alarm thing, wasn't that in Veronica Mars?

Re:It May Look Nice...

[Zackbass]

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.

Re:Where did they get the money for this?

[flooey]

Those things aren't cheap, and most college students are about as destitute as one can be.

If you read the article, it mentions they got most of the gear off the "reuse" mailing list at MIT. Apparently, it's the equivalent of institutionalized dumpster diving, where they cut out the middleman and just hand equipment to people directly.

thoughts on why is this news?

[iberian411]

well, if this wasn't mit it wouldn't be in the news, /. or otherwise. I would however like to throw out to whomever listening that the interesting between-the-lines of all this is that this sort of DIY, as easy as this particular project was, behavior is not only tolerated but celebrated at MIT. where I went to college, a little place call Moravian, the students were barely literate. In fact they were stupid. Which wouldn't be so bad if they were all women and attractive, but they weren't. Building such a device would confuse the troglodytes that roamed about and perhaps induce rage. sometimes i wonder how different my life would have been if i went to MIT, not considering whether or not i'm MIT material in the first place. The college I went to was so bad that I think I got dumber by attending. People I could learn from or network with later in life were few and far between, and the kind of experimentation that inspires technical thought leadership was shunned and in fact punished if brought into the classroom. It's almost as if the social impact of computing is in fact as imporant as the craft itself.

Typical EC

[JelloJoe]

You only find this stuff at EC. After 4 years here at MIT, EC is definitely the most unique group of students. I have to give them credit for the creativity they have, from the disco floor, to their annual rollercoaster during rush, to their naked parties. If you think of MIT students you think of EC. Although, there are "normal" students and "normal" parties at MIT. Baker has the best dorm parties, EC the most unique, Senior Haus the most drug-filled, but they all contribute to the great diversity at MIT.

Re:Women control

[nanoakron]

But amusingly, and many women will attest to this: they belive that men control the love in a relationship.
  So we're left with a simple bargain: love for sex. One party provides each and desires the other.
Wierd, huh.

Re:Instant women...

[ifishfortorque]

Interestingly enough, this story was posted by the girlfriend of one of the young engineers.

Re:It May Look Nice...

[Aerion]

Is it useful? I would think that a processor as old as the Alpha wouldn't be that useful even if you did have sixteen of them. They were pretty awesome in their time though.

You're more or less right. Right now, four of them are crunching away with distributed.net, and the other twelve are pretty much doing nothing.

One more Alpha is serving up pictures and a wiki, and occasionally withstanding partial Slashdottings. We actually have 19 Alpha processors on the hall in total, which is probably way too many. Next step: collecting Sun Ultra 5's.