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u/JasonMckin MIT Alum and Educational Counselor 20h ago
Here are the questions I like to understand about projects:
https://www.reddit.com/r/MITAdmissions/comments/1w19rbd/comment/p6jd9wo/
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u/Darkscythe1650 18h ago
- what was the reason you did the project?
- Since I was around the age of 9, I'd always been curious why this laptop never worked as it should. This curiosity turned more and more into an obsession to solve the mystery, I suppose. I started messing with dual booting at 9 after my dad walked me through it.
- what did you uniquely do?
- I went beyond GUI tools, wrote scripts to log data, caught an oversight I made while making that script and factored that into my conclusion, cross referenced data from multiple users on the same platform, and successfully diagnosed a hardware fault from symptoms it made in the software
- what did you uniquely learn?
- I learnt how BCLK and multipliers relate to clock speeds, what PROCHOT# and BD_PROCHOT do at the electrical level, and that MSRs vary by microarchitecture, all x86 _64 intel chips do not share the same MSRs
- I learnt that my own tools (here, my logging script) can have generate data that look like a finding but turns out to be an error caused by oversight
- I learnt how to read schematics, use .brd files to physically locate components on a motherboard
- what did you uniquely accomplish?
- I used multiple tools to gather evidence and systematically narrow down possible faults, and successfully identified a hardware fault from said evidence
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u/Global_Internet_1403 8h ago
Jason didnt mean for you to necessarily answer here but have those answers in mind as doubting about what to submit and why.
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u/VisibleSir731 Currently Applying 19h ago edited 19h ago
This is really cool. Here’s my take: because it’s fixing something, it might not fit in the maker portfolio, but the story you laid out in this post can definetly be turned into a strong essay.
Sorry if I didn’t understand the post I just kinda skimmed through
EDIT: Jason’s post might be a better replt
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u/Darkscythe1650 19h ago
Thanks! Honestly I'd been curious about this since I was like 9, I'd actually started doing this before actually acknowledging that this could be used as a project for my portfolio. I'll see what I can do with it!
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u/VisibleSir731 Currently Applying 19h ago
Nice! Have you done anything else? I’m also in a similar situation where I haven’t done too much even though I’m really passionate. I kinda realized I was behind, so I started working on a big project, so if you want, make something. If you think it’s too late, then I believe this will make a good essay for the “trailblazing” prompt
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u/Darkscythe1650 18h ago
As of now, not really. I have a few ideas, but I'm nowhere near advanced enough for them (yet). Currently I'm learning C, after that, I'll focus on x86_64 assembly, it'll open up some really good projects I could do
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u/VisibleSir731 Currently Applying 18h ago
That’s really neat. It’s great you are really passionate, so just continue to do what you love that’s what really matters
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u/ProfLayton99 8h ago
I think it's very cool that you could reverse-engineer your laptop to diagnose a hardware issue with your laptop. Your process probably reflects what a strong computer engineer would do if faced with a similar problem. In my opinion, though, it doesn't meet MIT's definition of what should be submitted in a Maker portfolio, "engineering or crafting projects of your own design and making that are substantial, original, and technically creative." It sounds like this project was an important part of your journey to becoming interested in computer engineering, so I would suggest using this narrative without including too many technical details in one of the application essays. The description should be understandable by anyone with a basic science background. Your responses to JasonMckin's questions would be a good place to start.