Class of 2020 Brass Rat revealed
Hacker’s Map includes floor plan of Senior House
The Class of 2020 Ring Committee held the premiere event for the class’s Brass Rat last Friday.
The event was attended by most of the sophomore class, with the line for admittance wrapping around Kresge Auditorium. After a joke bezel presentation (featuring a “This is fine” dog meme) the Ring Committee presented its design over a constant buzz of excitement.
The main bezel shows the iconic beaver mascot holding out a globe, on which the continents are arranged into the supercontinent of Pangaea. According to the designers, this is to represent the diversity here at MIT, but also our unity. The beaver, who also happens to be wearing a ’20 ring of its own (also depicting a beaver wearing a ’20 ring…), is flanked by the familiar skylines of Cambridge and Boston, with the solar eclipse of last summer rising above the Longfellow Bridge. Various Easter eggs paying homage to hacking, punting, and tooling culture at MIT, ranging from an IHTFP banner to the Green Building tetris game, are generously scattered throughout the bezel.
Traditionally, the Seal Shank, the panel of the ring which showing the Ring Committee’s rendering of MIT’s seal, depicts two men representing a craftsman and a scholar. The Ring Committee this year follows the decisions of several past Ring Committees by featuring a woman as the craftsman: Riri Williams ’20, the Marvel superhero who reverse engineered an Ironman costume in her dorm room at Simmons and became Ironheart.
On the inside of the ring is the traditional Hacker’s Map, depicting MIT’s underground tunnel system. This year’s map includes the floor plan of Senior Haus, memorializing the dorm. The map also features a paintbrush in place of the tunnel where the Borderline Mural Project now adorns the walls, commemorating community and artistic expression.
The ring delivery is scheduled for Friday, April 20, at the Boston Public Library, a location featured on the ring’s depiction of the Boston skyline.