Wondering what powers everything from e-book readers to electric cars? Come see the MIT inventions behind cutting edge technology like laser surgery and energy efficient light bulbs.

Get introduced to the world of technology transfer: browse issued patents and technical illustrations, explore important issues such as the government’s role in funding research, and learn how inventions move from the lab to the world around you. These presentations will run one hour long.

Sponsor: Technology Licensing Office

Learn how the chips in your cell phone, video game, etc., are made. Take a window tour of the lab to see the big machines that it takes to make these tiny devices.

Tours are limited to 10 people each; there will be four 20-min tours. You will see demonstrations of new applications (e.g., light emitters, medical measurements).

Sponsor: Microsystems Technology Laboratories

Discover the largest, most active student energy organization on MIT's campus, a community of more than 2,500 people eager to solve our most pressing energy issues.

A miniature floating wind turbine will be on display for the entertainment of kids and adults alike.

Sponsor: MIT Energy Club

MIT's Technology and Development Program is assisting in the development of the Masdar Institute in Abu Dhabi. TDP's role with the Masdar Institute is diverse and evolving, but currently is focused on four main areas:

1. Development and management of joint collaborative research

2. Assistance in development of degree programs

3. Outreach that encourages industrial participation in Institute research and development activities

4. Support for capacity building at the Institute in terms of its organizational and administrative structure as well as scholarly assessment of potential faculty candidates

Masdar Institute is a private, not-for-profit, research-driven, post-graduate university.

Sponsor: Technology and Development Program

Free admission all day at the MIT Museum, as it turns itself inside out for the Institute's Under the Dome: Come Explore MIT! (and the first day of the Cambridge Science Festival). Go behind the scenes of the museum and explore unique artifacts from MIT's history, as well as innovations in art, science and technology in Cambridge and beyond.

The day's programs will feature tours, hands-on activities, and a chance for visitors of all ages to see and chat with the people behind the Museum's MIT150 exhibition.

Sponsor: MIT Museum

Interactive talks on how materials science fits into today's world, including medicine, batteries, and communication. By professors Yoel Fink, Krystyn Van Vliet, and Lorna Gibson

Sponsor: Department of Materials Science and Engineering

Do you have what it takes to be a climate negotiator?

Come take part in demonstrations of a new science tool to assess Greenhouse Gas emissions reduction policies. C-ROADS (Climate Rapid Overview And Decision-support Simulator) is a timely simulation tool that helps users understand the long term climate impacts of scenarios to reduce greenhouse gas emissions. C-ROADS provides policymakers and policy analysts in government, NGOs, the private sector, and YOU a better understanding and intuitive feel for the long term consequences of climate change given various emissions reduction strategies.

Sponsor: Climate Interactive

Where do our products come from? Learn about how supply chains are built and how products flow throughout the world to your desk!

Sponsor: Center for Transportation and Logistics

Changes in technology affect everyone including the people who design and construct the buildings on campus.

Explore the technological changes in drawing software of the past few decades and what lies ahead.

Check out the tools used to build and repair the buildings. Hammer and nails. Not any more!

On display will be design software of past decades and the newest used to build the Stata Center. Included in the exhibit are blueprints of buildings, aerial views of campus, and a sneak peak at what's ahead for the MIT campus.

Sponsor: Department of Facilities

Plasma — the fourth state of matter — is so puzzling, intriguing, and valuable to our present and future that MIT has devoted an entire laboratory to exploring it.

Learn how MIT's Plasma Science and Fusion Center uses plasma for energy research.

Visit the Alcator C-Mod Tokamak experiment to observe the latest progress in an international effort to make controlled nuclear fusion possible.

Sponsor: Plasma Science and Fusion Center

The MIT Chapter of Engineering Without Borders is in the process of providing eletricity (via solar panels) and clean water to the the Engeye Health Clinic in Ddegeya, Southern Uganda.

EWB is also showing villagers how to make a renewable charcoal fuel for cooking food, and creating new water systems, such as a rainwater harvesting tank and SODIS water purifiers for the entire village, which now relies on one dug pond and a single well. (Children often make several trips a day to the pond, carrying jerrycans of water up to two miles each way.)

This exhibit will describe the project on posters, demonstrate how to make charcoal using banana leaves, corn cobs and banana peels, display a prototype of the rainwater harvesting system, allow hands-on water testing, and demonstrate SODIS water purification, in which plastic jugs of water are purified by UV rays and heat from the sun.

The exhibitor is Marisa Simmons. Hosted by the Department of Civil & Environmental Engineering, Engineers Without Borders, and Civil and Environmental Engineering Students.

Sponsor: Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering

Come learn about MIT OpenCourseWare – a website that makes course materials used in the teaching of almost all of MIT’s undergraduate and graduate subjects available, free of charge, to any user anywhere in the world. Hear about our milestones as we celebrate our 10th anniversary, and find out about our next decade initiatives.

Sponsor: OpenCourseWare

Since the inception of NASA and its Apollo program, Draper Laboratory (formerly the MIT Instrumentation Lab) has been on the leading edge of space exploration technology.

Join us as we demonstrate our latest partnerships with MIT in the area of space exploration: TALARIS, a planetary hopper that is a joint Draper and MIT Aero/Astro project being developed for the Google Lunar X Prize, and Exoplanet Satellite, a cubesat designed by MIT Department of Earth, Atmospheric and Planetary Sciences (EAPS) and Draper to study nearby stars for evidence of transitory planets.

Sponsor: Draper Laboratory

Come visit us and see a cloud chamber that shows how radiation is all around us, a demonstration of a fusion reactor, an online time-of-flight experiment that uses the MIT reactor, and an exploration of the periodic table with examples of each element.

Sponsor: Department of Nuclear Science and Engineering

Learn about creating maps with Geographic Information Systems (GIS) and collecting data in your community with a global positioning system (GPS) unit. A GIS provides tools for analyzing scientific and cultural data, as well as data collected by individuals (like you). Session will include demonstration and a chance for everyone to collect data outside and create their own maps.

Sponsor: MIT Libraries

Watch BLOSSOMS (Blended Learning Open Source Science or Math Studies) videos and learning modules and talk to students and staff about this large, free repository of video modules for high school math and science classes.

Sponsor: Engineering Systems Division

Visit our tent to see some of the research that has been done by our energy faculty and students. A posted schedule will indicate when hands-on demonstrations will occur.

Sponsor: MIT Energy Initiative

We use concrete, steel and other man-made building materials to create structures like bridges, roads and buildings. In nature, bone forms the structural basis for the bodies of humans and many other organisms, and spider silk is the spider's building material of choice. Did you ever wonder how natural and man-made building materials differ from one another and what they look like at the molecular level? Researchers in the Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering are using molecular modeling simulations to try to reduce the carbon footprint of concrete and design a man-made material that is as strong and lightweight as spider silk.

At the Molecular Secrets! exhibit you can watch computer simulations based on quantum mechanics that show the electrons in cement interact with water. You'll also see how weak hydrogen bonds in spider silk actually make the material marvelously strong — even though it's lighter than a feather.

This hands-on exhibit will let you manipulate materials at the molecular level on a computer to see how they respond to compression and pulling, and how they react with water and other substances.

The exhibitors are Associate Professor Markus Buehler and Senior Research Scientist Roland Pellenq. Hosted by the Department of Civil & Environmental Engineering.

Sponsor: Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering

Since 1969, the Undergraduate Research Opportunities Program, commonly known as “UROP," has been facilitating research collaborations between faculty and students, across all disciplines. Today, UROP is considered MIT’s "signature" program, and more than 85 percent of undergraduates participate.

This poster session will showcase current UROP students conducting research in a diverse and interesting array of areas that potentially include engineering, cancer, energy, linguistics, humanities, social science, robotics, media studies, artificial intelligence, and others.

Sponsor: Undergraduate Advising and Academic Programming

During their time at MIT Sloan, students tackle real-world challenges through signature action-learning lab courses. These courses pair diverse groups of students with global organizations experiencing transformative change and in need of the expertise of a leading school of management.

Through dynamic, on-site projects in countries throughout Africa, Asia, and Latin America, students have the opportunity to learn in and from a rapidly changing global economy. Join our students for an interactive poster session, and learn more about how MIT Sloan is in the world, and for the world.

Sponsor: Sloan School of Management

Come learn about the science and policy of climate change! Hands-on activities and demonstrations will help you visualize the current state of climate knowledge and what earth will look like when MIT is 300 years old. Students and researchers from a wide range of expertise will be on hand to answer questions and discuss global change issues.

Specific Activities include:

Take a spin on the Greenhouse Gamble! The Greenhouse Gamble roulette-style wheels demonstrate the likelihood of potential global temperature change in 2100. Try spinning both the "with policy" and "without policy" wheels to see two different features and learn about the climate impacts associated with the temperature you spin!

Weather-in-a-tank: explore weather and ocean systems with rotating fluid experiments from the Department of Earth, Atmospheric and Planetary Sciences. Three experiments will be conducted throughout the day, including demonstrations of how earth’s rotation affects atmosphere/ocean circulation, the “ingredients" that make weather (temperature difference and earth rotation), and the circulation of ocean gyres that create the “Great Garbage Patch"

Climate complexity: our climate is intertwined with many elements of life—from traditional agriculture to the modern industrial economy, and with many current issues—from energy security to economic development. Explore our graphic representations of the different aspects of our daily lives that are incorporated into climate models. Challenge yourself with our scavenger hunt to learn how the earth and human systems impact, and are impacted by, climate change.

What will you be when you grow up? Will you be the next climate scientist or environmental economist or energy policy maker? Come meet climate experts and watch streaming videos of students and researchers talking about their work and why it's important.

How much carbon dioxide is really up there? Know the number! Watch a replica of the nearly 70-foot electronic carbon counter sign in the heart of midtown Manhattan, New York. This carbon counter is a "real-time" estimate of the total amount of greenhouse gases in our atmosphere, based on calculations from the MIT Joint Program on the Science and Policy of Global Change.

Sponsor: MIT Joint Program on the Science and Policy of Global Change

If you're traveling the tunnels of MIT, be sure to stop by the Department of Facilities customer service center.

Learn about the department that keeps the campus operating 24/7, 365 days a year.

Sponsor: Department of Facilities

As part of the Engineering Systems Division's MIT150 activities, we will be showing a video on the MIT Portugal program.

Sponsor: MIT-Portugal program

Plasma—the fourth state of matter—is so puzzling, intriguing, and potentially valuable that MIT has devoted an entire laboratory to exploring it.

Learn from graduate students how MIT's Plasma Science and Fusion Center uses plasma for energy research.

Sponsor: Plasma Science and Fusion Center

What began as a collaboration between students and faculty members at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology in 1969, the Union of Concerned Scientists is now an alliance of more than 350,000 citizens and scientists.

UCS members are people from all walks of life: parents and businesspeople, biologists and physicists, teachers and students. We are the leading science-based nonprofit working for a healthy environment and a safer world. UCS combines independent scientific research and citizen action to develop innovative, practical solutions and to secure responsible changes in government policy, corporate practices, and consumer choices.

Learn how you can get involved and help safeguard our future and the future of our planet.

Sponsor: MIT Joint Program on the Science and Policy of Global Change

In May 2010, MIT announced the creation of the largest, boldest energy efficiency program their utility company NSTAR had ever developed. In May 2011, MIT will celebrate the opening of MIT's greenest and most energy efficient builidng on campus. Come learn about these and many other campus sustainablity initiatives that are making a difference on campus and in your community. Learn how MIT's progress can help you save energy and money in your own home or business.

Sponsor: MIT Sustainability Program – EHS Headquarters Office

Terrascope is a learning community in which freshmen study and find solutions to real-world problems. In the fall, the class addresses a single big, multidisciplinary problem, then presents a solution and defends it before a panel of experts. In the spring, the students divide into teams to test, implement or build upon their ideas and present their work in an end-of-semester Bazaar of Ideas.

This exhibit will show posters describing some of the student projects, which included building and testing a model of a geological carbon-sequestration site; developing less greenhouse-intensive forms of concrete; prototyping a new energy-storage mechanism for offshore windmills; designing a multiplayer game to teach players about control of atmospheric carbon; and creating an interactive museum about greenhouse gases and methods of mitigation.

The exhibitors are Professor Charles Harvey and Dr. Ari Epstein, Lecturer. Hosted by the Department of Civil & Environmental Engineering.

Sponsor: Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering

Scientists from the multi-disciplinary Research Laboratory of Electronics will be demonstrating their research including a robotic arm, glowing pickles and HDTV.Scientists from the multi-disciplinary Research Laboratory of Electronics will be demonstrating their research including a robotic arm, glowing pickles and HDTV.

Sponsor: Research Laboratory of Electronics

In the Gordon-MIT Engineering Leadership Program, MIT engineering undergraduate students learn how to become next-generation technical leaders who have the professional and interpersonal skills to understand and address significant engineering problems in real-world situations.

In this interactive hands-on activity, guests will be led by current GELs (Gordon Engineering Leaders) through a sample leadership and design-build exercise.

Guests will also be able to help evaluate leadership performance based on a key program document, the Capabilities of Effective Engineering Leaders.

Sponsor: Gordon Engineering Leadership program

This multimedia exhibition showcases in words, documents, photos, video and sound, the broad and varied history of MIT.

View original MIT documents and historically significant materials that played a role in making MIT the unique place it is today. The exhibit also features items from the MIT Museum's 150 Exhibition, as well as Infinite Histories, video stories of those who have shaped—and been shaped by—MIT.

Sponsor: MIT Libraries

Watch a video about the MIT Engineering Systems Division, talk to students and staff, and take some ESD materials.

There also will be videos about and info tables for the Leaders for Global Operations program and the MIT Portugal program.

Sponsor: Engineering Systems Division

See how over time aviation has affected our environment and how MIT researchers are developing ways to make aviation greener.

Displays of potential alternative fuel sources, aviation history, maps of Boston-area aviation noise impacts, and more.

Sponsor: Department of Aeronautics and Astronautics

Bring your electronic devices over to our Watt meter table. You may be surprised at how much energy your phone, iPod, or Kindle actually uses.

Sponsor: MIT Energy Initiative

A window to the work of public service innovators who are tackling barriers to well-being faced by people around the world. Learn about projects and meet teams competing for $150,000 in implementation grants in this year's IDEAS Competition and MIT Global Challenge.

Sponsor: Public Service Center

The behavior of particles of matter and light in the plasma state is complex.

The Plasma Science and Fusion Center (PSFC), which is devoted to investigating this state of matter, presents a demonstration of the principles of plasma science, hosted by the renowned Mr. Magnet (Paul Thomas). Using glow discharge plasma, an emission spectrometer, and such ubiquitous substances as nail polish remover and a pickle, the room will literally glow from the colorful emission of matter in the plasma state.

Volunteers from the audience will participate in this fascinating journey into the plasma state. 45 Minutes.

Sponsor: Plasma Science and Fusion Center

This session is for both children and adults who want to learn how life on Earth works. It is centered around a children’s book co-authored by Professor Sallie W. Chisholm and the award-winning children’s book writer, Molly Bang.

The book describes photosynthesis, the most important process on Earth. Without photosynthesis, there would be no life as we know it on planet Earth.

We will have a book reading and demonstrate photosynthesis in action using leaves. Prof. Chisholm will also give a brief presentation on what motivated her to produce books for children, and provide a sneak preview of the next book: “The Invisible Forest in the Sea: How the Sun Feeds the Oceans." The exhibitors are Professor Sallie W. Chisholm, Lee and Geraldine Martin Professor of Environmental Studies and Graduate Student Jessie Thompson. Hosted by the Department of Civil & Environmental Engineering.

Sponsor: Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering

Learn the secrets of magnetism from the Plasma Science and Fusion Center's Mr. Magnet (Paul Thomas). After decades of bringing his hands-on magnet demonstration to local schools, Paul Thomas is inviting the public to participate in his popular program.

Watch and participate as circular magnetic field lines are made visible, an ordinary aluminum pan appears to defy gravity, and liquid oxygen gathers at the poles of a magnet. Levitate a small magnetic cube, and make it spin in mid-air. Strengthen and weaken the magnetic properties of the metal "gadolinium." Answer the question, "What substance often found at your desk, in your back pack, or in your hand, can be called "diamagnetic?"

Sponsor: Plasma Science and Fusion Center

Engineering Systems Division PhD students share their research in areas such as energy & sustainability, healthcare delivery, critical infrastructures, and extended enterprises.

Sponsor: Engineering Systems Division

Join faculty and students from the Program in Science, Technology and Society (STS) as they give five-minute “soapbox" talks about their research topics.

STS members study a wide variety of areas which include the American Civil War, the color wheel, Pluto, camouflage, zoo animals, and energy in Africa.

There's something for everyone!

Sponsor: Program in Science, Technology, and Society

Plasma - the fourth state of matter - is so puzzling, intriguing, and valuable to our present and future that MIT has devoted an entire laboratory to exploring it.

Learn how MIT's Plasma Science and Fusion Center uses plasma for energy research. Visit the Alcator C-Mod tokamak experiment to observe the latest progress in an international effort to make controlled nuclear fusion possible.

Sponsor: Plasma Science and Fusion Center

From 2:45 - 4 PM, join the GCWS for an interactive series of presentations in Rehearsal Room A of the Kresge Building. During that time, graduate students from all nine Graduate Consortium in Women's Studies member institutions (Boston College, Boston University, Brandeis University, Harvard University, MIT, Northeastern University, Simmons College, and UMass Boston) in an exploration of gender and race as it applies to the disciplines of science and technology.

Students from the GCWS course Gender, Race, and the Complexities of Science and Technology: A Problem-based learning approach taught by Sally Haslanger (Professor of Philosophy, MIT) and Peter Taylor (Professor in the Science in a Changing World program at UMass Boston) will present their ongoing research on topics as diverse as race and technology access, anarchism and science, the radical science movement, and more.

Sponsor: School of Humanities, Arts, and Social Sciences

Wondering what powers everything from e-book readers to electric cars? Come see the MIT inventions behind cutting edge technology like laser surgery and energy efficient light bulbs. Get introduced to the world of technology transfer: browse issued patents and technical illustrations, explore important issues such as the government’s role in funding research, and learn how inventions move from the lab to the world around you. Presentations will run one hour long.

Sponsor: Technology Licensing Office

Plasma — the fourth state of matter — is so puzzling, intriguing, and valuable to our present and future that MIT has devoted an entire laboratory to exploring it.

Learn how MIT's Plasma Science and Fusion Center uses plasma for energy research.

Visit the Alcator C-Mod Tokamak experiment to observe the latest progress in an international effort to make controlled nuclear fusion possible.

Sponsor: Plasma Science and Fusion Center

The behavior of particles of matter and light in the plasma state is complex.

The Plasma Science and Fusion Center (PSFC), which is devoted to investigating this state of matter, presents a demonstration of the principles of plasma science, hosted by the renowned Mr. Magnet (Paul Thomas).

Using glow discharge plasma, an emission spectrometer, and such ubiquitous substances as nail polish remover and a pickle, the room will literally glow from the colorful emission of matter in the plasma state.

Volunteers from the audience will participate in this fascinating journey into the plasma state.

Sponsor: Plasma Science and Fusion Center