Fake Bomber Has an MIT Web Page

SHOOTING STAR (ALMOST) Simpson

Star Simpson, the 19-year-old MIT student arrested at gunpoint in Boston's Logan International Airport today for wearing a fake explosive device with wires and Play-Doh, describes herself on her MIT Web page as "an inventor, artist, engineer, and student, I love to build things and I love crazy ideas."

She continues, "I'm currently studying computers and how they work at MIT. I play at a student-run machine shop called MITERS. Before that, I lived for a long time in Hawaii, while traveling the world and saving the planet from evil villains with my delivered-just-in-time gadgets."

Someone's been watching too much Real Genius.

Other highlights from her online résumé:

• MIT Media Lab, Personal Robots Group Spring 2007

Worked to construct and deploy the first Autom, a socially interacting robot designed to encourage people to meet their weight loss goals by tracking and encouraging their efforts. This project became the company Intuitive Automata.

• MIT Media Lab, Tangible Media Group, Fall 2006

Worked on the "PingPongPlus"—a technically augmented, visually responsive ping-pong table.