REPORTAGE. Behind the scenes of the astonishing “Media Lab” at MIT in Boston, where “all ideas are welcome”

His name probably doesn’t tell you much. But the innovations that were born there are much more. It was at the Media Lab that, for example, the ink used in e-readers was invented, but also dozens of robots, a karaoke that updates new songs, the video game Guitar Hero or the ancestor of Google Maps and Google Street View.

franceinfo was able to visit this mythical American laboratory of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) in Boston, in the United States, where several hundred scientists from all over the world and handpicked work … who practice on Lego. “We love to play! Well, these are games on very serious subjects. But if you don’t have fun at your job, you won’t give your best.s”, smiles Kent Larson, who directs the laboratory dedicated to “the city of tomorrow”, where models are made with the famous fun bricks.

Here, for example, a scale model of the city of Andorra la Vella, on which Kent Larson and Luis Alonso, a Spanish architect, worked. “The small luminous points projected on the model and which move, these are the people. The blue dots, the French, the orange dots, the Spaniards, the others are white. We know their movements thanks to telecom data”describes the specialist. Arnaud Grignard, researcher in computer science at the University of Lyon I and also associate researcher at the MIT Media Lab, specifies: “Andorra’s problem is ‘We have data, we have tourists, how can we first understand the behavior of the latter?'” “Here we look at tourism, pollution… This model helps the government of Andorra to understand what is the impact of tourism on mobility“, adds the architect.

At the Media Lab, we understand that science is not only theoretical. In this large building with glass partitions, next to the ping-pong table and in the middle of the bazaar of 3D printers and soldering irons, we manufacture, we experiment, explains Arnaud Grignard, and Kent Larsson. “If I tell Luis that his idea sucks, he’ll tell me ‘go ahead, prove it!’ There, rather than arguing, thanks to the data with this model, I will be able to show him that I am right“, slips, facetious, the director. “We make a lot! I found myself doing a lot less programming and a lot more manual stuff. It’s really the concept: to have a kind of toolbox that allows you to find the screwdriver, the screw you need. Sometimes you see students spending the whole night painting rooms. There is access to everything needed to prototype physical objects”he assures.

The Media Lab is often considered in the world as a scientific “UFO”. Researchers are working on inventions in which no one had hitherto launched. And they all come from diverse backgrounds, from diverse disciplines. “It’s a magical place. In this lab, we have colleagues who are architects, town planners, computer scientists, mechanical or electrical engineers, psychologists, mathematicians… And the magic happens when these people work together, but also when they think outside their field of skill. For example, an architect who is going to design sensors or a data visualization tool will apply his architectural sensibility to it.“, assures Kent Larson.

If this laboratory is dedicated to urban planning, in all, at the Media Lab, there are 21 other groups of researchers formed around a theme, each time. The Frenchman Cédric Honnet, for example, specializes in human-machine interactions and seeks to invent intelligent textiles. “The group affective computing mixes artificial intelligence and medicine to explore a number of problems such as stress. Another group explores medical issues. The questions raised range from the microscopic order, to observe neurons for example, to psychology, chemistry, physics, biology, electronics…”; he details.

And faced with the dozens of creations that have found use in the daily lives of millions of people, the lesson is clear: all ideas are welcome. “I’m from Spain, and here at the Media Lab the culture is completely different. All ideas are good. In Spain, when you have an idea, you are told ‘ha OK…‘ Here, we tell you right away: ‘OK ! What’s the next step? How do we do ?‘ This is the philosophy of the Media Lab: we try. And then if we fail, at least it will allow progress“, certifies Luis Alonso, architect.

Funding for the Media Lab is provided by companies, often multinationals, “There are a few dozen companies funding the lab. Each pays the equivalent of the costs of two or three students, such as Panasonic or Samsung. In exchange, they all have access to the intellectual properties developed by all the groups“, explains Cédric Honnet. And they can therefore market these ideas. The research of the MIT Media Lab generates, each year, around 20 new patents.