The Collaboration

MIT + FIT + AFFOA

Design Meets Engineering

Built for undergraduate students, the program is a partnership between AFFOA, MIT, and FIT to facilitate the intersection of design and engineering for products made of advanced functional fibers, yarns and textiles.

The diverse pairing and short time period also remind us of the energy captured in an academic crash course, and just how much teams can do in a condensed period of time.

-Chris Wawrousek, Senior Creative Design Lead at New Balance Innovation Studio

Industry Challenge

Each iteration of the workshop features a new challenge for workshop participants to apply their learnings and create a new innovative prototype. By using newly acquired technical knowledge as a springboard, workshop participants formulate ideas to identity a prototype. Scientific processes, entrepreneurial and design thinking and problem solving skills are applied when conceiving innovative products for specifically targeted market segments.

Participants utilize the resources provided by MIT, FIT, and AFFOA to realize their prototype within the two-week span in an iterative process. The most recent challenge has been provided by industry to present real-life problems to the workforce of the future. If you are interested in providing the next industry challenge, contact us today!

Workshop Partners

Our clothes help define us, yet the fabrics we wear haven’t evolved much over human history. Recent breakthroughs in fiber material and fabric processing allow us to design and produce fibers and fabrics that see, hear, sense, communicate, store and convert energy, regulate temperature, monitor health, and change color. The basis for these new fabric capabilities are fibers that contain semiconductor devices, setting the stage for a “Moore’s law” for fibers. These new fiber materials are made possible by Advanced Functional Fabrics of America (AFFOA) which is enabling a domestic, manufacturing based revolution transforming traditional fibers, yarns and fabrics into highly sophisticated, integrated and networked devices and systems.

Massachusetts Institute of Technology is committed to generating, disseminating, and preserving knowledge, and to working with others to bring this knowledge to bear on the world’s great challenges. MIT is dedicated to providing its students with an education that combines rigorous academic study and the excitement of discovery with the support and intellectual stimulation of a diverse campus community. We seek to develop in each member of the MIT community the ability and passion to work wisely, creatively, and effectively for the betterment of humankind.

One of New York City’s premier public institutions, FIT is an internationally recognized college for design, fashion, art, communications, and business. We’re known for our rigorous, unique, and adaptable academic programming, experiential learning opportunities, academic and industry partnerships, and commitment to research, innovation, and entrepreneurship.

While our pedagogical mission is to prepare our students for professional excellence in design and business, our broader ethos is to foster creativity, inspire leadership, impart a global perspective, and educate students to embrace inclusiveness, commit to sustainability, and engage with community. We encourage students, scholars, teachers, and industry colleagues to cross traditional boundaries of both geography and disciplines. Together we strive to develop innovative design and strategic business solutions that will upend the status quo, create personal and professional opportunity, and have a lasting and sustainable global impact.

Alumni

FIT
Rachel Cheang
Giulia de Garay
Nga Yi Amy Lam
Daniella Koller
Jonathan Mateer
Stephanie Stickle
Veronica Aspan
Melanie Wong
Jesse Doherty

MIT
Rebecca Grekin
Kedi Hu
Caroline Liu
Xin Wen
David Merchan
Erika Anderson
Calvin Zhong

Our Teams

FIT
Prof. Andy Liu
Joanne Arbuckle

MIT
Dr. Katia Zolotovsky
Dr. Mehmet Kanik
Dr. Yuly Fuentes
Dr. Gregory Rutledge

AFFOA
Nicole Meyerson
Noah Drori
Vartan Hengen

New Balance
Chris Wawrousek
Michelle Dunbar