This past weekend was a STEM weekend.
Saturday morning we attended the Family Science Day at my office. It's an annual event presented by the Merck Institute for Science Education and volunteers from among my coworkers.The girls really enjoyed it. When we arrived there were a bunch of walk-around stations where kids could experiment with different scientific facts. Then a representative from Mass Audubon gave an auditorium presentation with a live kestrel and a barred owl. That was followed by an interactive session where we learned a lot about sponges and also about making observations and performing experiments. Then we had pizza. That was the warm-up for our weekend. After the science fair we hopped in the car and drove to New York to attend Maker Faire on Sunday. This was the second annual fair held in New York; there have been fairs for several years in the Bay Area. Last year Audrey and I attended the inaugural NYC fair. Boy, where to start on what we saw and did there?- In the center of the grounds was a huge metal fire-breathing dinosaur/lizard machine - and they were letting kids climb on it! Audrey climbed up onto a sofa built into the rump, but then she decided that was a little too high for her. Charlotte sat in the driver's seat. Audrey also waited for a while to climb up into the belly of the beast. At one point the builder of the thing told one kid not to climb on a particular part because "it's dangerous." All of the parents looked at each other and said to each other, "The whole thing is dangerous!" But that's part of the point of Maker Faire: don't just passively consume stuff - take risks and explore! Like this. I loved the skin on the lizard that was made from old truck tires cut into long strips.
- The Life Size Mousetrap, of course. See last year's video to see it in action.
- The girls always love the Science Playground at the New York Hall of Science, the site where Maker Faire is held.
- Played with Oobleck. We were really looking forward to the big vat of it that they had last year, but even without the big vat the girls enjoyed playing with a smaller tub of it.
- We learned about electricity and circuits with Squishy Circuits. They have recipes that make playdoh either conductive (more salt) or insulative (more sugar), and then use it to illustrate those concepts with simple circuits.
- Revisited one of my favorites from last year: the Brooklyn Aerodrome. They show you how to build a cheap remote controlled airplane out of recycled foam board.
- The girls made paper bag puppets.
- In the craft-related shopping area the girls had a good time at the Thumbooks booth.
- Carol and the girls rode the Carousolar: a carousel powered by nearby solar panels.
- We ate overpriced gyros. They weren't as spectacularly good as last year.
- We *really* enjoyed the Sashima Tabernacle Choir (video).
- I got to wander through a whole bunch of robotics and 3D printing projects and products. If you ever feel the need to buy me a $1300 gift, get me a Maker Bot. Make magazine, the sponsors of the fair, have a huge Maker Shed store tent there. I could spend a lot of money in that tent.
We wrapped up the day with a shaved ice and then got on the road home. We were pleasantly surprised to not encounter much traffic through Connecticut. We all had a great time and we'll definitely go again next year. I might even organize it as a field trip for the robotics team I mentor.
Now I just need to find the time to get back to those robot projects...
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