Origami beaver on Zoom

Thirteen of us gathered in a Zoom meeting to socialize and try to make the MIT origami beaver.  We had two new grads and two current students stuck at home in the Kansas City area because of the Wuhan virus. 

Let me just say that we made all the way to minute 1:10 of the YouTube directions.  No one on the call was an origami master, and so some of us just stumbled our way as far as we got.  Here's the link if you want to give it a try.  You just need a square piece of paper (lightweight copy paper is fine).

First Annual Nerd Holiday Party

Fortunately, we were able to get a meeting room at the JOCO Library with short notice, because our original date had unfortunate weather.  Needless to say, we had a great time, and the nerdy gift exchange was really cool.  Gifts ranged from the unromantic, but always useful, flash drive, to physical puzzles.

The refreshment buffet and unknown nerdy gifts

Cherry and a puzzle

Deb and a book for taking over the world

Erin (RPI alumna) and a flash drive

Christine and an English-Swedish dictionary

Dave

Jenny and manual drafting tools

Jesse

Norton and Cherry

Christine and Tammy

Casual Wichita meet-up

Deb was in Wichita for a conference and met with some of the Wichita alumni (Emmanuel, Steve, Tony, and Laura) at a WSU Starbucks.  John tried to get there, but there are two Starbucks at WSU.  She distributed some MIT swag and reconnected with some of the alumni there.

Summer Send-off 2019

Our summer send-off picnic was hosted again by Prof. Simon Friedman.  It was a very nice, intimate lunch with a new alumna to the KC area and some old friends from our alumni group.  We only had two new admits this year, one in KC Metro and one in Wichita.

MIT-KC Wichita Edition

A number of the Wichita-area alumni/ae gathered for the first annual Wichita MIT Alumni Dinner. We resolved to reconvene the same time next year.

Our group (left to right): Tony and wife (Patricia), Laura, Emmanuel, Jeanne and Laura (Deb was photographer) with little MIT banners

Mary and her family were a little late

The obligatory Brass Rat photo

Laura forgot her Brass Rat but sent a photo after the fact

Brunch and Kinetic Event

Jenny, (and Steve) and Deb participated in the Tower2Tower 5K,

Team MIT-KC at Tower2Tower 5K

 and then joined Jenny and Jesse for brunch at the Lenexa Public Market.

Jenny, Deb, Cherry and Jesse

We had an amusing interaction with a townie who asked if someone at our table went to MIT in a snotty tone.  We responded "All of us."   He took a step backwards and departed.

Pi Day 2019

This year, the Pi Day celebrations are one of two mandated alumni gatherings (in place of the Toast to IAP).  We wanted to have fruit pies and pizza and had some difficulty locating a venue, but the UMKC Emeritus College offered their facility (which is located in the library), so we held this event in mid-town Kansas City.

Jenny, Satyen and Deb, and the pies! Satyen's son was the photographer.

We included a charitable drive of toothbrushes and shampoo for Giving the Basics, and hoped for a nerdly gift exchange, but we only had one nerdy gift.  Therefore, we had an MIT trivia playoff (it was online) between Jenny and Satyen.  Well, Satyen won the clip-on calculator.

This was also the 24-Hour Challenge day, so we kept the website open to watch the progress of the challenges and fund-raising.

It was small, but fun.  Hope to see you at Pi Day next year.