Summer Science Saturday 2013

Summer Science Saturday 2013

The theme of this year's Summer Science Saturday was Jupiter and Beyond the Infinite! The day-long event, held on July 20, featured great kids activities like making paper rockets and planispheres, building volcanoes (like those on Io), and learning about physics, spectroscopy, robots, rockets, and so much more. The OSIRIS-Rex Ambassadors helped to cool off the crowd with asteroid ice cream, handmade by each guest. There were afternoon lectures by Professor Alfred McEwen ("Exploring the Solar System"), Research Associate Dr. Michael Sussman ("Uranus: The Planet that Woke Up"), and graduate student Rob Zellem ("Exoplanets: Exploration, Discovery, and Understanding"). The event also marked the first-ever LPL Spaceship Landing Contest (a.k.a. Egg Drop)—participants built egg spaceships and dropped them from increasing heights to determine whose spaceship was most sound. The winner of the contest was Yuhan Fu, an 8th grader at Esperero Canyon Middle School. PTYS graduate students Sky Beard, James Keane, Kelly Miller, and Ethan Schaefer did a magnficient job of planning and proctoring the Spaceship event. Thanks to these volunteers and many others (graduate students and community members), Summer Science Saturday was a success, with approximately 750 Tucsonans in attendance.