The nuts and bolts of preparing a New Venture Plan and launching the venture will be explored in this 37th annual IAP offering. The course is open to members of the M.I.T. Community and to others interested in entrepreneurship. It is particularly recommended for persons who are interested in starting or are involved in a new business or venture. Offered in January 2026 on Tuesdays, Wednesdays and Thursdays January 20, 21, 22, 27, 28, 29 6pm to 9pm Room 10-250. Persons interested need to sign up for the email list at nutsandbolts.mit.edu/email.php

Workshop blurb:Ever wondered how are objects from our daily lives designed? How can we generate a computer 3D model of a classic iPod, a Play Station controller, or a LEGO Tower Bridge? What about designing the Taipei 101 tower? A banana? Or how about visualizing and interacting with these objects using VR? In this fun MIT IAP 2026 workshop, you will learn the skills to design and VR-visualize all of these, and much more!Split into 8 (6 CAD, 2 VR) 2-hour long sessions, the first half of each session will be spent learning new Autodesk Inventor and VR skills, while the second half will see the application of these new skills through in-class activities, with a focus on reverse engineering. In contrast to traditional mechanical design courses, this workshop places greater emphasis on the design process itself, understanding how we can plan and best leverage our available tools to arrive to our desired result. Thus, the sessions are less about following the instructions on an engineering drawing, and more about independent thinking and strategizing, reverse engineering an object into a 3D model. New to this edition of "How to CAD" are 2 sessions that will go through the process of visualizing 3D models using VR!Logistics:Please express your interest in this workshop by filling up the following form.You can find the "How to CAD Almost Anything" syllabus for this IAP 2026 here.