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Post

Research at Scale

Wikipedia

by Cedric Honnet

Jan. 1, 2014

Since 2014, MIT / Media Lab researchers return to Asia every year to scale their research, and explore the local manufacturing ecosystem.

⚡ TL;DR:

  • What: residency about hacking manufacturing to deepen research impact.
  • How: by visiting and working with factories (about electronics, textiles, etc), electronic markets, maker spaces, art spaces, etc.
  • Who: with partners from academia (AIRS + SUSTech) and industry (Seeed + MuRata)
  • When: 4 weeks during IAP (January)
  • Where: Shenzhen, HK, Kyoto and Tokyo.

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📢 Jan 2025:  this year, the residents are Alan Han (CBA), Andy Kong (Fluid affiliate), Cedric Honnet (ResEnv), Francisco Ramirez (EECS / CBA), Jason Hou (Conformable Decoders), Lingdong Huang (Future Sketches), Patrick Chwalek (ResEnv), Thomas Sanchez (City Science), Vineet Padia (Mech.E), Yuhan Wang (GSD/TMG affiliate).

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🚀 Note:

The residency integrates a 1 week symposium that condenses the main part of the residency: ScalableHCI.com (Jan 6-12)

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🔍 Context:

In collaboration with leading open hardware industry partners, the program provides invaluable insights into the manufacturing intricacies, but also the local maker networks.

The “Research At Scale” residency hopes to benefit communities in developing countries (as it amplifies financial accessibility to hardware), but it also paves the way for scaling research to unprecedented dimensions and unexplored territories.

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Some previous occurrences:

Copyright

Isaac Blankensmith

Details archive for the yearly residency application:

1) Topics:

• Past: mostly about electronics and textiles (see archives)

• Next: anything in the broad theme "open tech for good"

• Examples: (multiple proposal ideas are OK)
     - biodegradable manufacturing
     - massive kinetic art installations
     - making a (scientific) tool affordable
     - participative musical instruments for crowds
     - provocative or weird ideas are also very welcome!

2) Sponsorship:

• Commitment: 4-week presence required (it goes really quickly actually).

• Proposal: a realistic and impactful idea by Nov 1st (simple is good).

• Expectations: presentations and open documentation.
Prototypes will be appreciated (example), and full completion can be later (example).

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