MIT Nuclear Reactor

Last friday our class went on a tour to the MIT Nuclear Reactor. This was probably one of the best and most interesting “field trips” I have ever gone on. When we first arrived it looked like any old building that you would see in the city. It was just a plain door off the side walk that let us in. After we arrived we had to go through several processes before we began our tour. We started by going to a presentation about the lab that was presented an employee named Tom. Tom gave us the basic history and facts about the reactor as well as the purpose of it today. He also gave us a little lesson on fission and fusion.

Inside a reactor

After the presentation things began to get very interesting and caught me by surprise. To enter the actual reactor we had to enter through  a computer controlled steel door that required retina analysis. Then we waited in the airlock for a few seconds until the next steel door opened up. Once we got inside there were several scientist walking around monitoring the computers and what not. I was fascinated by how the reactor looked. I couldn’t believe something like this was just sitting in the middle of a major city being run my college students. The reactor was not as big as i expected it to be. We couldn’t actually look down inside the reactor by had an idea of what it looked like because of the presentation. After touring the main room of the reactor we headed down to the control room. The control room is the most important part of the reactor.

Control Room

The room was being operated by an MIT student who the tour guide claimed was “the most important person in the reactor” since she could control everything by the push of a button. The closer the buttons were to the operator the more important they were. After that we headed out which also required another process that we had to go through. Before we left we had to scan ourselves for radiation incase we became contaminated on the tour. We inserted our hands into a device that checked us. Then right before the exit we had to scan ourselves for a second time to be positive there was no contamination. Overall visiting the MIT Reactor was quite an experience and I’m glad I took part in it. I learned some very interesting things and would be more than happy to go back.