Discover Engineering Family Day

Become a creative inventor, engineer, and mathematician for a day!

A boy explores robotics at the annual Discover Engineering Family Day.

Photo by F.T. Eyre

Saturday, February 20, 2010
10:00 am-4:30 pm

The National Building Museum and the National Engineers Week Foundation invite you to debunk the myths of engineering and discover how professional engineers turn an idea into reality.  Celebrate National Engineers Week by participating in this free, hands-on and fun-filled festival! 

Discover Engineering Family Day is a FREE, drop-in program. $5 donation suggested. Program and activities are most appropriate for children ages 5 to 13 with adult supervision. Registration is not required. More information about 2010's festival will be available soon.

Visit the Discover Engineering Family Day Website to learn more.

During 2009's festival, children and adults:

• Watched Nate Ball, host of PBS’s Design Squad as he rappelled from the Museum’s balcony using his invention -- the ATLAS powered rope ascender. Visitors listened as he explained the mechanics of the ascender and built their own ascenders, capable of carrying a ping pong ball four feet down a zip-line.
• Explored the inner-workings of a real race car
• Played a carbon footprint game and learned about the carbon cycle
• Watched competition robots race
• Made slime
• Took Polaroid pictures with Digit from the PBS series Cyberchase
• Explored the basic principals of aerodynamics
• Created a flinker, something that neither floats nor sinks
• Made their own parachutes and watched them hover
• Built their own solar oven
• Solved unique and intriguing design and engineering challenges
• Tried much, much more!

Scouts

Activities at the festival will assist scouts in fulfilling some requirements for the following badges. Activities are subject to change, and a complete list of activities and the requirements they fulfill will be available the day of the event. Girl and Boy Scout groups should check in at the Scout Information Table located near the center fountain to receive this list of activities and badge requirements. Pre-registration is not required for scout groups.

• Tiger Cub Scouts: Make a Model
• Wolf Cub Scouts: Family Fun, Spare-Time Fun, and Machine Power
• Bear Cub Scouts: Family Fun, Build-a-Model, and Aircraft
• WEBELOS: Craftsman, Engineer, and Scientist
• Boy Scouts: Engineering

Sponsors

Major funding for the Discover Engineering Family Day is provided by the National Engineers Week Foundation and IEEE-USA. Additional support is provided by the Project Management Institute, Northrop Grumman Corporation Electronic Systems, and the Semiconductor Industry Association; with local support provided by American Society of Heating, Refrigerating and Air-Conditioning Engineers Nation's Capital Chapter; U.S. Navy Nuclear Propulsion Program; and American Society of Civil Engineers.