Wednesday, June 20, 2012

MIT and EurekaFest, day 1

I stepped off the plane at Logan Airport in Boston today hoping I had left the scorching heat behind in Virginia. Nope. Just as hot in Boston. It's time for EurekaFest, MIT's annual celebration of all thing inventive. Over the next four days students, teachers and industry partners will converge on Cambridge in the spirit of helping our young students get the know how they need to make ideas into reality.

I'm here through one of the featured programs, InvenTeams. MIT chooses around 15 high school groups per year to receive a $10,000 grant to prototype a student generated invention. That's not us yet but teachers whose teams are vying for the prize over the following school year are brought here to observe and learn. I'm thrilled to say that my small group of homeschoolers is in the running!

 Tonight we ate food from all parts of Massachusetts and watched 30 teams of students try to build the tallest free-standing balloon structure. Very fun. The balloon towers were measured in Smoots, a uniquely MIT unit of length based on a freshman years ago who was laid end to end across a bridge. Looking forward to more design and invention lectures tomorrow.
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