Complete the scavenger hunt, available throughout CSF week at mitpressbookstore.mit.edu, then pick up your prize at the MIT Press Bookstore and enter a drawing for a chance to win a $50 bookstore gift card!

Scan this QR code to get started!

Think you have what it takes to build an unsinkable ship? Join us for some stories, and then we will build boats out of tin foil. If your boat floats we’ll add pennies to see how much weight they hold! For children ages 5 and up and their caregivers.

Complete the scavenger hunt, available throughout CSF week at mitpressbookstore.mit.edu, then pick up your prize at the MIT Press Bookstore and enter a drawing for a chance to win a $50 bookstore gift card!

Scan this QR code to get started!

Meet neuroscientists from MIT’s McGovern Institute to talk about their latest discoveries in brain science, including new tools built from viruses and bacteria to repair the brain and listen to what neurons are saying to each other. Have fun interacting with brain-machine interfaces and artificial intelligence, and see real brains.

There are so many fun ways to trick your eyes and brain! Create your own optical illusion and explore how we take in and process visual information.

Complete the scavenger hunt, available throughout CSF week at mitpressbookstore.mit.edu, then pick up your prize at the MIT Press Bookstore and enter a drawing for a chance to win a $50 bookstore gift card!

Scan this QR code to get started!

Can biomaterials build a more sustainable future? Decide for yourself in this hands-on workshop as you create colorful string from seaweed-derived polymers. Work together with your family, experiment with different formulas and extrusion methods, and put your creative skills to the test!

Supported by the Biogen Foundation.

Join the local mycologist Lawrence Millman for an educational walking tour of Fresh Pond Reservation. Millman is the author of Fascinating Fungi of New England, the first guidebook dedicated to understanding New England mushrooms. Together we will learn about existing species, the history of different species, and their role in our ecosystem.

Registration is mandatory.

Bring yourself, plant clippings (if you have them), and lots of excitement to the new home of Sasaki & the Sasaki Foundation in downtown Boston. Meet some new friends, learn about the science of propagation, have a drink, and celebrate Cambridge Science Festival. Never propagated plants before? No worries. Here is a useful guide for propagating common houseplants in water. Don’t have any houseplants? That’s okay, too! You can still participate, hang out, and go home with a new plant.

To ensure we have enough soil, planters, and snacks, please RSVP if you plan on attending.

We invite children and their caregivers to join us for a special evening story time event: learning fun things about the lives of famous scientists like Jane Goodall and George Washington Carver. This program will be held indoors at the O’Connell Branch Library and will run 20-25 minutes. Please call 617-349-4019 for more information.

Complete the scavenger hunt, available throughout CSF week at mitpressbookstore.mit.edu, then pick up your prize at the MIT Press Bookstore and enter a drawing for a chance to win a $50 bookstore gift card!

Scan this QR code to get started!

We invite children and their grown-ups to join us for 20-25 minutes of stories and songs about science, with a craft to take and make at home, while supplies last.

Complete the scavenger hunt, available throughout CSF week at mitpressbookstore.mit.edu, then pick up your prize at the MIT Press Bookstore and enter a drawing for a chance to win a $50 bookstore gift card!

Scan this QR code to get started!

Complete the scavenger hunt, available throughout CSF week at mitpressbookstore.mit.edu, then pick up your prize at the MIT Press Bookstore and enter a drawing for a chance to win a $50 bookstore gift card!

Scan this QR code to get started!

The Thorlabs mobile photonics lab brings the science of light to you. We will demonstrate measuring light at different colors to identify materials (spectroscopy), image inside the body with light (biomedical optics), transfer electrical signals through the air with laser beams (optical communications), and show what the inside of optical fiber looks like and how it works. Come inside to be introduced to the world of photonics!

Come try out a new family-centric creative play and coding app on the phone, brought to you by the developers of Scratch.

Join us to celebrate Isabel and the Invisible World, the second book from renowned physicist and New York Times best selling author Alan Lightman, with colorful, hands-on activities and a reading of the book. This event is presented in collaboration with MIT Kids Press, an imprint of Candlewick Press, the MIT Press Bookstore.

Young readers rejoice! Free copies of Isabel and the Invisible World will be distributed at the event, while supplies last. Please choose “Free Ticket + Book” to reserve your copy, limited to one per household.

All ages are welcome but activities are geared towards ages 3-10. All minors must be accompanied by a responsible adult. Responsible adults, please keep a close eye on your kids.

In this interactive art project, participants create light paintings, viewable in real time, using a variety of light sources such as fiber optics and smart LEDs. At the end, a flash is triggered, illuminating participants in their painting.

Become an astronomer for a day! Come visit us on Observatory Hill, and see what the Center for Astrophysics has been up to. Enjoy exploration stations that include hands-on activities, telescope tours, and solar observing. There’s even an opportunity to ask our scientists all of your burning space questions at our “Ask an Astronomer” tables.

Find out the latest discoveries about the sun, exoplanets, and black holes and take your own telescope images using our robotic telescopes, or go on a virtual tour of space using the World Wide Telescope visualization lab- It’s out of this world!

Are you interested in neuroscience, or want to learn more about how your brain operates? Do you want to pursue a career in STEM, or neurology? Do you enjoy watching magic tricks? If so, join Sabrina Welch in the magic of neuroscience as she shares the fascinating world of the brain using magic tricks to illustrate neuroscience concepts! This program is great for kids, students, and families to come and watch an exciting magic show, and to learn about the brain in a fun, memorable, and engaging way! So bring your friends and family members, and come to immerse yourself in the magic of neuroscience!

How do you inspire a new generation of entomologists and scientists? With hands-on fun, of course! Stop by and see some of the amazing arthropods featured in educational kids’ enrichment programs from Professor Bugman Entomology Adventures!

The CUA will present several hands-on demonstrations for kids and families. The event will kick off with an introduction by MIT Professor Martin Zwierlein on the nature of cold. Kids can then explore a tornado machine, a demonstration of an ion trap, a station to make your own holograms, and a liquid nitrogen demo by CUA researchers.

Complete the scavenger hunt, available throughout CSF week at mitpressbookstore.mit.edu, then pick up your prize at the MIT Press Bookstore and enter a drawing for a chance to win a $50 bookstore gift card!

Scan this QR code to get started!

Add a little math to your day! The National Museum of Mathematics is pleased to present an afternoon of math fun for all ages with some of its most popular math exhibits. Slice geometric shapes with lasers to find surprising shapes hidden within, build forms that roll in unusually funny ways, and participate in a giant group construction of the Hyperbolic Rainbow, led by mathematician Chaim Goodman-Strauss, author of a ground-breaking new math paper. Bring your friends and the entire family for some exciting mathematical edutainment!

Stop by to learn how wind turbines work! Build a mini turbine of your own and see how the wind is affected from one turbine to the next. Finally, design and develop a floater for an offshore wind turbine and test it.

Be a scientist for a whole day! Massachusetts General Hospital is home to the largest hospital-based research program in the United States. Learn how the research taking place at the Mass General Research Institute today will lead to better care for patients—like you—tomorrow and in the future.

From a coloring book with exciting science facts to fun experiments to teach you about the human body and the fascinating way it works! Stop by our Cambridge Science Festival booth to learn from the brightest minds in scientific research who work to find solutions and treatments to help save people’s lives every day.

1.
Color your life with science!
Learn how Mass General physicians and scientists work together to understand how the human body works and how they are studying it to come up with solutions to save people’s lives via a fun coloring book!

2.
Scientist for a day!
Learn alongside Mass General Research Institute investigators and explore the science of health and medicine through fun, interactive experiments.

From germs to cells, genes to vaccines, our researchers are exploring all areas of biomedicine. Hopefully, after this, you’ll be a scientist for more than just a day!

How do you turn ordinary milk into an explosion of color?! With just a few common kitchen items, we will show you how to turn milk into a rainbow created by hydrophilic and hydrophobic molecules in these ingredients. It’s fun science that you can explore and do at home!

Bzzzzzz! Discover the science behind sounds as you engineer a device that creates air vibrations to mimic the noise a swarm of bees makes.

Meet Athena, an underwater robot built by students in Arcturus, the MIT marine robotics team! While you’re here, check out our water blaster and ball launcher. Stick around and you can assemble your own pocket-sized water vehicle.

Interactive, hands-on activities which make learning the laws of physics fun and accessible. Our demonstrations explore physics phenomena using everyday household materials and scientific equipment. We invite you to explore the fundamental properties of physics, and engage in conversations with Clark University Physics students and faculty.

Join us for hands on plasma and magnet activities, and to learn about research being done at MIT!

Stop by the Info Booth and grab some MIT.Nano swag! But be quick – it won’t last forever!

Circuit Lab teaches electronics and computer programming classes to kids ages 5-14.  We will be bringing interactive demonstrations of some of our classroom projects for participants to play and experiment with.

We will demonstrate a home-built horn antenna radio telescope for observing 21 cm wavelength radio emission from neutral atomic hydrogen gas in the Milky Way. Plans and parts-list for building your own such telescope will be distributed. With such a telescope you can make your own map of the distribution of atomic hydrogen gas in our Galaxy, and measure its rotation.

Join the Peabody Essex Museum in exploring the superpowers of bats! Discover how designers and innovators are drawing inspiration from these amazing creatures, leading to new inventions and ways of understanding our world. Learn more about the museum’s current exhibition, Bats!, and create an art project that will put biomimicry into practice.

Social psychology research, fun facts about virtue, and surveys/activities related to virtue!

Prepare to transcend the boundaries of time and gravity, embarking on a journey of lyrical tribute to the women who propelled STEM to new dimensions. “Verses of Visionaries: Women in STEM” is your invitation to learn about and pen the legacy of brilliance and celebrate incredible women in STEM. An immersive experience hosted by highschool students passionate about fostering diversity, inclusivity and bridging the STEM gender gap.

Help sort the trash from the treasure – compost and recycling! Do you get confused about what can be recycled? Are you skeptical that items get made into new products? Find what we can give a second life to and discover what materials bring recycling sorting machines to a stop.

We are interested in building deep learning models for Brain imaging segmentations along with other phenotypes!

Work hands-on with polymers to discover the magic of material science!

We will bring a number of child-friendly activities that teach kids about the brain and how we read and process language. These activities may involve looking at a real-time spectrogram of a child’s voice to “see what they say” and hands-on learning activities to show parts of the brain we use for reading and language. We will also provide the opportunity for parents to learn about family-oriented resources related to speech and literacy development.

We will have several hands-on demos to explain concepts such as synthetic biology circuits, immunotherapy, and a vaccine cornhole game

Come explore robots + artificial intelligence with the Personal Robots
Group from the MIT Media Lab! We will demo our social robot Jibo and
share interactive activities to learn about AI.

Students will have the opportunity to explore syGlass, a software platform for the visualization of real massive scientific datasets. A virtual reality narration recorded by a real scientist will take them through a lesson on different topics of their choice including neuroscience, anatomy, and environmental science.

Mix and match the robot puzzle parts! What kind of robot will you build?

Inspired by Vicky Fang’s inventive AlphaBot, an interactive STEAM book for young readers that teaches robotics terms, MIT Press Bookstore in conjunction with Candlewick Press invites you to play and learn at our robot puzzle party!

This is a hands-on craft suitable for kids ages 3-10 and their families.

Register now! The first 50 registrants get a free take-home build-a-book-bot craft kit.

Copies of AlphaBot will be available for purchase at the MIT Press Bookstore, located steps away from the Science Carnival at 314 Main Street, and online.

Learn the art of paper cutting! Experience the beauty of Kirigami and try your hand at creating your own stunning paper sculptures, with expert guidance from celebrated paper cutting artist Quinten Jin.

Get a chance to make a real difference for people and nature. Discover Earthwise Aware (EwA)’s work documenting nature in the Greater Boston Area, why it is critical, and how you can volunteer or intern with us.

The natural world starts right here where we live: in our cities, our streets, our gardens, our public green spaces, parks, and reservations. This means you can have an extraordinary, positive impact on our natural world, helping grassroots environmental organizations do the work that matters because the outcomes are concrete and empower communities. When you engage with EwA, you help protect urban biodiversity, including native species and pollinators, documenting invasives and monitoring habitats while mentoring our future environmental leaders and coaching our communities. By doing so, you contribute to a thriving, healthy planet.

Booth activity: Learn how to document species, their life cycles, and their interactions with their habitat.

Visit our booth to explore different ways of translating life sciences into pictures. Learn why drawing is important and try your hand! Suitable for all ages.

When it rains, where does all the water go? Come use a 3D interactive model to find out, and explore what’s happening both above and beneath the surface of our streets and homes.

What planets orbit the stars that shine brightly in our night sky? Are they gargantuan or minuscule? Warm or chilly? Part of a family or on their own? Meet the astronomers studying these exciting planets with NASA’s Transiting Exoplanet Survey Satellite, TESS. Learn with hands-on activities about the TESS mission (in operation since 2018!) and how astronomers at MIT and the Center for Astrophysics | Harvard & Smithsonian use this tiny but mighty telescope to find weird and wonderful worlds called “exoplanets”.

Highlander Robotics student team members will showcase and explain this year’s competition winning robot.

Change is Simple (CiS) and SCiLL – our Sustainability & Climate Innovation Learning Lab – bring hands-on STEM learning to elementary and middle school children in Massachusetts.

SCiLL is a 30-foot-long, mobile lab outfitted with cutting edge science and learning tools you’d expect to find in a professional laboratory setting. It offers lessons on important aspects of sustainability.

We are holding a Robot Petting Zoo where we teach younger children how to drive our competition robots, which is an engaging and inspiring experience for many. Furthermore, we will more information about our team and FIRST, as we display our portfolios, PR packets, and Engineering Notebooks. Overall, it is a great experience to engage with the local community and share our love for STEM and robotics.

You will learn how to build and pilot your own walkalong glider. This technique allows sustained and controlled flight of a simple paper airplane. It will fly forever!

We will showcase different 3D printed projects such as a perpetual motion machine, sculptures, robot arms, etc.

Simple demonstrations for complex scientific concepts! Demos include “weather in a tank”, “ocean acidification in a cup”, and “Earthquake on a table.” Come by to learn about our outreach activities and how to organize a visit by MIT scientists to your classroom!

Choose a piece of paper, a pen, give the pendulums a push, and try to guess how the drawing will develop! Blend different kinds of motion to explore the drawing space or simply watch how other drawings develop. Or crank the gears on the epicycloid machine to watch frequencies determine symmetry!

Biology happens at the nanoscale. At the Cambridge Science Festival Carnival, scientists and engineers from MIT’s Koch Institute for Integrative Cancer Research and the Marble Center for Cancer Nanomedicine will be on hand to show you how we design tumor-fighting tools inspired by MIT research. Join us for search-and-find to learn what it’s like to be a researcher helping treat cancer. We’ll also have 3D images to help you explore the microscopic world of e.coli bacteria.

Multiple mini robotics activities for all ages! Come drive our competition robot (scoring cones on different poles), creating DIY pins, navigating mini sphero robots through a maze, and building LEGO creations. Learn more about robotics at the high school level and the experiences of girls in STEM.

Kids get to see, pet, hold, and learn about a selection of our amazing arthropods that we bring to our educational enrichment events!

Join us for an engaging hands-on activity where you can design, build, and personalize your very own Bristle Bot – a small robot created from everyday materials such as toothbrush heads and mini motors. Learn more about robotics by building your bot and checking out our very own robot demo!

Engage in a fun filled activity to discover the secrets of celestial slime. Prepare to be astounded as you learn about the science behind this secret slime making process. Discover how the incredible powers of glue, borax, and vibrant pigments combine to form an astonishing celestial slime, transforming simple ingredients into an astronomical creation. Kids will use their imagination to create their own out of this world slimes in this 15-minute adventure.

Stop by the Ankyra booth as we showcase how drugs can be anchored to disease sites to improve treatment and safety.

EnchanTech – Where Magical phenomena are explained through scientific principles. We are a bridge between magical and scientific realms.

By applying scientific principles and technologies, we can decrypt the seemingly magical aspects of these concepts and understand how they can be achieved through scientific means. While they may not possess the same enchanting quality as magic, they demonstrate the ingenuity and creativity of using scientific knowledge to create magical experiences for kids.

Some products to check on our table:

– EnchanTech Potion: While magic ink may seem fantastical, there are scientific principles that can explain its seemingly magical properties. See and do it yourself to understand how ink can be “magically” revealed by using different PH value chemicals.

– EnchanTech street Lights (Hand wind): A magical light powered by hand winding can be understood through the principles of energy conversion. By incorporating a dynamo mechanism, which converts mechanical energy into electrical energy, the rotational motion generated by winding the wheel can produce electricity. This electrical energy is then used to power the light-emitting diodes of street lights, providing the illusion of magic by turning the winding motion into a source of light.

– Light-up Cards & Light-up Wands: These utilize simple electronic circuits to create the illusion of magic. These circuits consist of a power source (such as a battery), conductive tapes/wires, and LEDs (light-emitting diodes). When the card is opened or pressure is applied to a certain area, the circuit completes, allowing electricity to flow and lighting up the LEDs. By strategically placing these components and designing creative card designs, the cards can appear magical when they illuminate upon activation.

– EnchanTech Coloring Robot: This is achieved through a combination of small motor & colors creating the illusion of a magically coloring robot.

Come explore your fascinating immune system with hands-on activities for the whole family.

With the rising popularity of generative AI tools such as Chat-GPT and DALL-E, it can be increasingly difficult to tell the difference between AI-generated content and human-generated content. Join the Institute for Artificial Intelligence and Fundamental Interactions (IAIFI) to learn about how generative AI works and see if you can spot the difference. Ask the same question to a virtual physicist and a real live physicist and see what answers you get! Then test your skills by comparing galaxy images from the James Webb Space Telescope with Dall-E generated galaxy images—can you tell which ones are real?

Immerse yourself in space – and a take a picture to capture your discoveries!

Spot the difference between a space rock and an Earth rock, hold a piece of solar system history, and learn about the ongoing exploration of outer space.

At our booth, you’ll have the chance to create art using engineering principles, including experimenting with an art-making robot that will help bring your creations to life!

Learn to use a dropper like a chemist as you practice making colorful spheres like the ones at the bottom of the popular Taiwanese beverage, boba tea. Your special spheres, made from seaweed extract will be gel on the outside yet squirt when squished.