Aurora BEAVERalis: Three levels of build guides

The MIT motto is "Mens et Manus" (Mind and Hand). It's how we go about learning, thinking, and solving challenges. Here are the guides we sent with the Aurora BEAVERalis kits!

Aurora BEAVERalis' Story

In the fall of 2011, my students and I faced an interesting challenge: To design engaging and intriguing types of hands-on projects for an engineering outreach trip to a remote Athabaskan school … in the middle of Alaska, … in the middle of winter!

We wanted something useful, but artful; something involving physics, but playfully; something kind of high-tech, but respectful of the native culture; and something fun to share with family and friends.

The “Aurora Bearealis” was one of these projects, and the inspiring story of a First Year student’s Alaska adventure was written up in the October 2012 edition of MIT’s magazine, “Technology Review”.

What makes MIT a world-class symbol of achievement is not how much our students study, it’s how much they actually get involved, applying their knowledge and skills to create new opportunities and to solve old problems in new ways… from direct involvement in current state of the art research, to seeking meaningful, sustainable solutions for and with communities around the world.

We hope you’ll join our quest to discover the unknown, to question the inevitable, and to overcome the impossible.

— Ed Moriarty