Exhibitions Review

Danny, Saul and Jonathan kicked off this round with explorations of the world of computing and computers: Saul at the micro level, exploring how microprocessors work; Danny at the global level, comparing the rise and future of the five most popular social networking sites in the world; and Jonathan at the galactic level, recounting ongoing efforts to create nuclear powered rockets.

Ryan celebrated his first round of Exhibitions with sophisticated materials game theory and astrophysics, each connected, in part, to his Lit Circles work on 'Life As We Knew It', in which an astrophysical disaster reduces human access to increasingly limited materials.

Lily pitted two groups against each other in a race to name all the major bones in the human body. Mike pitted two girls labelled 'charged particles' against each other, demonstrating how a particle accelerator works. They smashed into each other and turned into new matter, personified by Lev.

Denali led the group on a tour modeled delightfully after her trip to China with Fan Wu. we wandered from place to place, eating Chinese crackers and listening to the stories of the terra cotta soldiers and the oldest capital in the world. Lev worked his audience through material on the robobee, a fascinating little bot that may revolitionize traffic, exploration, and heaven knows what-all. Jianmarco also talked robots, bringing in and setting loose a Lego robot crawler.

Trent and Isobel both took a historical approach, focusing, respectively, on the Korean War and the rise of the Black Panthers. Trent created a board game across the 38th parallel, while Isobel engaged the group in an advocacy exercise built from the Place Out of Time model. Evan also made use of the Place Out of Time program, asking audience members to assume a historical character and take a position on the issue of concussions in National Football League.

Aristea went with food and with math, working her audience through fractions, proportions, and percentages via the irresistible delivery system of pizza. She was facilitating our participation in a game she had invented in Sam's math class, with support from Trent.

The last round of love is reserved for Taylor, bound for Community High School, who demonstrated his readiness for the existed with two thorough, thoughtful, and entertaining lessons on the kind of big-idea, large-scale science that he really enjoys. First, Taylor guided us through visual material on various attempts at perpetual motion machines, from da Vinci's time through the present day, including a Norwegian artist's amazing pendulum-driven machine, running without intervention for days at a time. Ask Taylor what 101% efficiency means. Next, he showed us an assortment of blueprints for trebuchets before taking outside and firing an acorn into the clear blue sky from a four-foot home-built machine without killing anybody. It was a suitably satisfying conclusion to a fine round of springtime Exhibitions.