Looking beyond "technology for technology's sake"

"Learning about the social implications of the technology you're working on is really important," says senior Austen Roberson. Austen Roberson's favorite class at MIT is 2.S007 (Design and Manufacturing I-Autonomous Machines), in which students design, build, and program a fully autonomous robot to accomplish tasks laid out on a themed game board. "The best thing about that class is everyone had a different idea," says Roberson. "We all had the same game board and the same instructions given to us, but the robots that came out of people's minds were so different." The game board was Mars-themed, with a model shuttle that could be lifted to score points.