BWSI Course Listing
Program Course OverviewsThe MIT Beaver Works Summer Institute will be offering the courses listed here. As we adapt to requirements based on the COVID-19 pandemic, we will try to offer as many of these as possible. BWSI will be a virtual program in 2022.The BWSI Program consists of online (prerequisite) courses and summer synchronous courses that build upon one or more of these prerequisites. The online courses are independent study, we need to see your progress and grades when we select students to be part of the summer program, so it is important to show progress by our application deadline on March 31. The courses need to be completely done by June 25 or students' acceptance into the summer program will be at risk.We are running introductory program for 9th and 10th grade students in a spring program starting in March.Information on that Saturday Spring program can be found at this link. |
BWSI Steps- more info on this page
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![]() Assistive TechnologyBWSI Assistive Technology will help students develop skill for product design, rapid prototyping, and product testing as they create technology solutions for people living with disabilities. We will tackle real problems faced by collaborating with people who have disabilities in your local community, and learn to work with the end users, stepping through the engineering design process together to come up with personalized, creative solutions. |
Autonomous Cognitive Assistance (CogWorks)Beaver Works Summer Institute will offer students an opportunity to learn about the cutting-edge in machine learning. Cog*Works consists of project-based modules for developing machine learning apps that leverage audio, visual, and linguistic data. Students will work with experts in these fields to learn foundational mathematical, programming, and data analysis skills, which will enable them to create their own algorithms and neural networks from scratch. Ultimately, they will design their own cognitive assistants. |
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Build a CubesatBeaver Works Summer Institute will offer students the opportunity to design, build, and test a prototype CubeSat. Students will explore all the major subsystems of a satellite and get hands on experience with mechanical, electrical, and software engineering. The class will use these new skills to demonstrate a real CubeSat science mission in partnership with scientists from Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution. |
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MedlyticsBeaver Works Summer Institute will give students a chance to explore the exciting intersection of data science and medicine. Students will build a solid foundation in the fundamentals of probability and statistics, and learn the basics of coding and machine learning techniques through a series of online teaching modules. During the summer, students will work in groups to gain hands-on experience applying advanced machine learning and data mining to solve real-world medical challenges. |
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![]() Serious Games and Artificial IntelligenceCombine modern methods in machine learning and game-like modeling to quantitatively analyze socially relevant technology and policy questions. This year’s application will be tactical routing for self-driving ambulances. We will build an analysis framework in Python to study the technical, moral, and strategic opportunities that new technologies present to that application. There will also be an emphasis on learning the practical tools and skills for working on a professional software development team. |
Autonomous Underwater Vehicles ChallengeLearn basic hydrodynamics, vehicle control and image recognition. Build a custom underwater vehicle and program it to navigate an obstacle course autonomously. |
The below courses are tentative for 2022* |
Autonomous Air Vehicle RacingNOTE: as a virtual course, these challenges will not be using real drones, but testing and competitions will be in a simulation environment. We think that it will provide a learning experience as good with the real hardware and makes the virtual course possible. Beaver Works Summer Institute will offer students the opportunity to explore some new areas of research and to design their own autonomous capabilities for UAVs (unmanned aerial vehicles). The students will work in teams to develop algorithms for deployment to an advanced quadrotor, the Intel Aero Ready-To-Fly Drone. They will use the Robot Operating System (ROS), popular open-source libraries, and custom algorithms to program the quadrotors to compete in a racing event. |
Unmanned Air System–Synthetic Aperture RadarBeaver Works Summer Institute will introduce students to Synthetic Aperture Radar (SAR) imaging as they build and fly a radar on a small Unmanned Aerial System (UAS) and use it to image scenes around campus. Students will work in small teams alongside their instructors to gain hands-on experience building, integrating, and processing data from a radar to generate SAR images. Teams will compete to create the UAS-SAR capable of producing the clearest images possible. |