Lab Prof, Teaching Assistant

Measurement and Instrumentation Class - 2.671

Overview of the 2.671 and the Go-Forth Project

Measurement and Instrumentation, also known as 2.671, is a mandatory undergraduate class in the Department of Mechanical Engineering at MIT. In this class, students learn the concepts and techniques for observing and measuring physical variables as well as how to communicate these results to technical and non-technical audiences. The class curriculum centers around the semester-long ‘Go Forth and Measure’ project, where each student conceptualizes a research project idea and turns this idea into a working experiment. They design the experiment, collect and analyze experimental data, and then present the results in a formal research paper and poster presentation. The class was created by Professor Ian Hunter of the Bioinstrumentation Lab at MIT and is now headed by Lead Instructor Dr. Barbara Hughey.

I first joined the teaching staff in Fall 2020 as a graduate student TA and continued as part of the teaching team until December 2023. Over those three years, I held two roles—graduate student TA and Lab Professor. Below, I describe my responsibilities for each in more detail.

Lab Prof

The role of the ‘Lab Prof’ is to act as the research advisor of the undergraduate for their projeect over the course of the semester. I was a Lab Prof during Fall 2021, Spring 2022 and Fall 2023, for a total of four lab sections (7-12 students per section, total 38 student projects). Responsibilities included:

• Reviewing research project proposals so that they are robust, feasible, and manufacturable given project scope (time and cost).

• Reviewing and grading project deliverables at key milestones. Providing guidance and feedback on data analysis, technical clarity, and communication of results. Responding to evolving project results with recommendations for project direction and next steps.

Graduate Student Teaching Assistant

The graduate student teaching assistant supports the function of the class and Go Forth project. I was a Teaching Assistant for the class during the periods of September 2020 to May 2021 and September 2022 to December 2023. My responsibilities included:

• Met with students in their pre-proposal meetings to develop project ideas into a research objective question that’s measurable, variable, and controllable, recommended sensors, and ideas for experiment setup.

• Review experiment setup sketches and sensor/equipment requests for proposed experiment assembly, evaluating the feasibility of sensor setup

• Assist students in initial assembly build/instrumentation and data collection.

• Assisting students with software debugging and application use in their Go Forth Project - Matlab and Vernier Logger Pro

• Sensor repair, testing, and construction, where applicable. Document symptoms of malfunction for sensors requiring and capable of repair from an external party.

Broad Sensor Familiarity - Temperature, Light, Acoustics, EMGs, etc.

Primary data logging systems were those from Vernier. One reason was the large suite of sensors that could be used with the data logging systems, and the relative ease with which students could begin logging measurements using the data.. Vernier sensors include temperature probes, spectrophotometers, and microphones, among others (full list here)

The class also used Instron, EMGs, and common electronic testing equipment (oscilloscopes, multimeters, power supplies). As TA, I needed to be familiar enough (or gain familiarity very quickly) with candidate sensors/processes to help students determine which sensors in the class library were appropriate for their research objective and assist with setup assembly and debugging.