Bad Ideas Weekend 2026 features 28 unconventional student-run events
Events ranged from building a gingerbread Stata to making 2^N cookies
Photo courtesy of Gloria Zhu
From Friday, Jan. 23 to Sunday, Jan. 25, MIT students participated in eccentric events during Bad Ideas Weekend, an IAP tradition during which students run and organize events based on humorous ideas. This year, there were 28 events, spanning from Dizzy Glasses Obstacles to Blind Mario Kart.
Although East Campus students are the main organizers of Bad Ideas Weekend, the event is open to all MIT students and takes place all across campus. This year’s Bad Ideas Chairs were Evan Lim ’29, Vivian Ang ’29, and Jack Carson ’28.
According to Ang, the chairs tried to approve as many events as possible as long as they passed safety approvals. “Good ‘Bad Ideas’ are subjective, so unless it was extremely dangerous or an idea someone else already wanted to run, we tried to advocate for it,” Ang wrote. One logistical issue they experienced was the snowstorm on Jan. 25, which caused them to cancel Mini Trebuchet and Outdoor Blacksmithing. However, the inclement weather did not stop them from running the Green Building Challenge — a Bad Ideas Weekend tradition. Ang stated that holding Bad Ideas Weekend events during the snowstorm “is just in spirit of the event either way.”
One event that stood out to Ang was “WHERE ARE MY BALLS?”, an event where people had to find balls containing written parts of an Amazon gift card code in the Simmons ball pit. She was also impressed by 2^N Cookies, as participants made around 2^11 (2,048) cookies using 8 different recipes, twice the amount of cookies baked last year. Overall, Ang liked all the events: “We thought all the events were amazingly ‘BAD’ in their own ways!” she wrote on behalf of the event chairs.
Besides traditional events such as the Green Building Challenge, this year also featured a number of new events, including Ignoramus Haircut and Gingerbread Stata.
In Ignoramus Haircut, students provided free haircuts in Lobby 10 if people shared gossip with them. Event organizer Eileen Zu ’26 shared that she had little experience with cutting hair before the event. “The power of Wikihow helped a lot,” Zu wrote. She credited Natalia Chavez ’29 for helping her and event organizer Katrina Li ’26 with haircuts so “people left not looking as chopped as one would’ve expected.”
In Gingerbread Stata, organized by Gloria Zhu ’26, students used gingerbread sheets to build a gingerbread house in the shape of the Stata Center. The event was based on the Christmastime idea of constructing an “elaborate gingerbread structure using laser cutting.” Zhu chose Stata because its architecture is made of many “smaller modular structures,” allowing people at the event to work in parallel. According to Zhu, the event “went really well,” and liked how people added features, such as a fire-spinning man in the amphitheater, to Stata.
“Bad Ideas is a great time to try things during IAP and a great way to engage with your communities,” Ang wrote.