Boston MIT Trip

Day 1

students were eager to shop shop shop and shop we did. We went to the Galleria Mall where the students found trainers and at a fraction of the 'Dubai prices'. We enjoyed the walk back to the hotel where the exercise and jet lag were not catching up on us all. We have just had dinner and it is approaching 8pm. It's an early night in store ahead of of the early morning alarm.
Talk tomorrow 😃

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Day 2

Today we woke up at around 7:00am then we all went down stairs to eat breakfast before getting ready for a long walk to the MIT museum. When we got there we got to meet the director of MIT. After that we got into our groups then we got a tour around the museum. We learnt all about robotics and about fins on a fish. Our task was to design a rudder for a small boat and our team won the competition.

After lunch we headed down to the Mmmaven project's studio to work on our musical talents. We spent some time in the computer room putting together pieces using loops and an editing software and then headed to the room where they kept all the DJ equipment and tried it out for ourselves. Finally we left for Boda Borg and tried (and failed) to complete the various quests they had there (which was a very fun experience). We ate dinner at the venue, soft tacos; after that we drove back to the hotel. All in all a pretty nice day.

Amir and Jevan

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Day 3

Today we woke up, got changed and headed down to breakfast downstairs at 7:00am. After listening to some notes from the director, we headed to the Johnson ice rink. When we got there, we watched a demo on fencing and all the circuitry behind it all. Then, we got to do a fencing tournament. We even made our own armor! We also made our own bow and arrow and tested it on a mini firing range - which didn't turn out too great for us. After that, we ate lunch at the Messiah hall then went back to the ice rink and had a demo on how an imploding cannon works. We also put a marshmallow into a mason jar and started to take all the air out of the mason jar and the marshmallow started to expand. 
At 4:15pm, we left to Simmons Hall, an MIT dormitory, for our Science Trivia Challenge where we competed in our school groups; there were very hard trivia questions in just the first round! Next we had dinner again in Simmons Hall. Then, we went back for the final round for the science trivia. Sadly, we didn't win. However, we still had an amazing time On the third day of MIT!

Omar Charif & Ali A

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Day 4

Today we woke and got ready for breakfast at 7:30. We left the hotel at 8:30 and started 2.009 at 9:00 . At first not even the teachers knew what 2.009 was, but it turned out to be really fun. It was us creating our own carnival games in groups of people we didn't know. There were 3 steps : ideate, model, test. At first it's was difficult because we didn't know anyone but after a while we got to know each other. The first step (ideate) was everyone planing and gathering ideas. Once we had ideas we had to narrow it down to 2 ideas. Afterwards we went to Stratton Student Center and had Subway for lunch. After lunch we played games and then started step 2 model. In this step we made prototypes of both of our ideas . After a while, 2 people came in to test our ideas. They gave us feedback and told us which idea they preferred. Once they had given feedback to all the teams we went to play relay races. After the intense but enjoyable races we had to do in our groups, we headed back to Simon Halls to continue with designing our carnival games. This took a lot of teamwork and collaboration in order to complete our final project. Some teams decided to do shooting games or darting games. At the end of the session the teachers chose the most innovative and unique carnival game. The group which won was the Mint team, due to their "Cardboard Badminton activity"; people had to put big cardboard boxes on themselves in pairs attached to each other using a string and play badminton using a pool noodle and a ballon. As a treat we got to go to MIT students and ask questions. This was very interesting and therefore allowed us to deepen our knowledge on MIT.

- Karen & Sirine

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Day 5

Today we took part in many activities. It started by visiting the iconic dome at MIT where we were given snippets of information including many of the famous 'hacks' which have taken place, our favourite been Tetras Tower. Following this we attended a cool media workshop combined with computer science where we made a virtual reality prototype. After some Mexican burritos for lunch we had the opportunity to programme our own game and test it as gameblox. It was then onto a chemistry magic show where we were treated to a range of eye catching experiments with scientific explanations for each one - some of which we could link to precious topics covered in science lesson. Following this we visited the famous 'Coop' where there is a range of MIT memorabilia and gadgets. To conclude the day we watched a magnificent live performance of the life of Marie Curie. It was fantastic and really honed in in the message of anything been possible with perseverance. When we got back to hotel we were treated to ice cream with lots of tasty toppings. Last full day tomorrow but lots of exciting workshops ahead 😀

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Final Day

For our last day we started out by walking to the art centre after breakfast to listen to the inspiring stories of 5 students: two nuclear engineers, a bioengineer, a member of the rocket team and an aerospace engineer.

After that we took a walk to an art gallery on campus where we spent an hour calmly doing some observational drawing before heading to have lunch at Chipotle, for the second day in a row.

After lunch we took a tour around Harvard in the beautiful pouring rain with the one and only Justin Fox. When we finished there we headed back to the hotel to prepare for the glow in the dark party at BISB. It was really fun as we got to meet many new students from the school.

Having now returned safely back to Dubai we can't wait to personally share our truly amazing STEAM NAE experience with all our fellow students, teachers and family.

#naemit #naebeambitious #nordanglia #STEAM#nasdubaiSTEAM