Triangle SciTech Expo Floor Guide
3D Printing and Bioprinting
UNC/NC State University Joint Department of Biomedical Engineering
Bioprinting and 3D printing technologies that have potential use in healthcare will be exhibited during the event.
Air Quality in NC
DEQ-Division of Air Quality
Spin the air wheel and answer a question for a chance to win prizes. Learn about air quality in NC and what you can do to keep our air clean!
Animal Architects
NC Museum of Natural Sciences
Did you know animals are also engineers and architects? Learn about some cool structures animals create and meet some of these “animal architects”!
Animals of Biotechnology
NC Museum of Natural Sciences
Animals are used in many ways in the field of biotechnology. Come meet a few animals and learn how they are helping us to understand our world and help us solve problems!
Animals of the Arctic
NC Museum of Natural Sciences
Come check out some amazing Arctic specimens from our research collection! See the majesty of a narwhal tusk and feel small next to a polar bear mount! You will learn how these animals have adapted to a frozen world and how climate change is threatening their existence.
Betabox Learning
How does a blue box on wheels provide captivating hands-on learning opportunities to K-12 communities across multiple states? Visit the Betabox table to find out! Learn about their mobile labs, check out some tech in action, and get some information on whether they can bring an experience to your organization.
Biotech and Invention – Engineering the Future
Biogen
In this activity, students will make a Whirligig centrifuge and learn how engineers develop technology to solve real-world problems.
Objectives:
• Introduce how engineering can be used to solve real-world problems.
• Introduce the concept of centrifuges and how they are used.
• Have students practice problem-solving and learning to think like an engineer.
• Have fun!
Charged Up Robots!
FIRST North Carolina
Watch really cool robots designed to play the 2023 FIRST Robotics Competition Charged Up! game. Take your turn driving and see if you can pick up the traffic cones. Can you place them on their pegs? How about the scoring cubes? Get energized with robotic fun!
Children’s STEM Books
PaperPie
Use water to “magically” paint a nature picture! They will also have a variety of STEM books available from PaperPie (formerly Usborne Books & More).
Creating Success Mobile Learning Lab
Turning Point Community Development Corporation
The Creating Success Mobile Learning Lab will provide engaging STEAM projects for participants of all ages!
Exploring Monkey Blood and the Skin Microbiome
Genomics & Microbiology Research Lab, NC Museum of Natural Sciences
Learn more about research projects in the Genomics & Microbiology Research Lab exploring the microbes found on our skin and the evaluating the health of monkeys by looking at their blood.
Flight Competition Discovery Station
Mad Science of NC
Students will have a chance to design their own paper airplane or use one of the provided designs and their “Mad Science helper” if they need some guidance. After creating their aircraft, students will have a chance to fly – aiming for the longest distance traveled. Students can keep their builds.
Follow Our STE(A)M
The NC Science Trail
Come see a demo of carbon snakes! Exhibitors will mix powdered sugar and baking soda with an accelerant and set it on fire to create a crazy carbon snake. Watch while you wait a few minutes as your cyanotypes take shape.
FRC Team 5518 Techno Wolves
Come see Atlas and Daedalus, two FRC robots built by high school students, as they demonstrate game-play attributes, such as picking up and placing cones and cubes, from this year’s FIRST Robotics Competition game Charged Up!
Future Builder
NC Museum of Natural Sciences
The Future Builder sustainability activity challenges visitors to build a tower representing a future community. Each card presents the players with a new part of their community to build — a school, park, gas station, museum, or something else — each with its own cost and reward. But players must balance their resources and construction carefully, meeting the needs of people, the planet, and the economy … or their community might be in for a crash!
Giant Slide
NC Museum of Natural Sciences
Gravity in action! Climb up and zoom down this 21′ inflatable slide!
Girl Scouts Science Patch
Girl Scouts — North Carolina Coastal Pines
Perform a science experiment building your own game.
Hempsmith Clothing Co.
Hempsmith Clothing Company will be hosting stamping on hemp paper. There will be a variety of science stamps to choose from and you’ll have the opportunity to hear some hemp facts while you stamp.
Hope Is in Our Hands
Charles River Labs
This station will have videos about what they do, and they will be handing out swag.
If Earth Were the Size of the Daily Planet
The Osher Lifelong Learning Institute at NC State University
The Museum’s outdoor scale model of Earth, the SECU Daily Planet, is the largest satellite-image globe in the world. This exhibit shows what the height of mountains and the atmosphere, and the depth of the seas and tectonic plates would be on the Daily Planet. It will also show the comparative biomasses of all major life forms: for example, who weighs more, all of humanity or all the ants on Earth? Come and find out the answer!
iNaturalist and City Nature Challenge 2023
NC Museum of Natural Sciences
Learn how to participate in this year’s City Nature Challenge where cities like Raleigh and others around the world compete to share the most nature observations in iNaturalist.
Incredible Science
NC Museum of Natural Sciences
Join us for entertaining demonstrations on electromagnetism, buoyancy and inertia with hot air balloons, gravity-defying apples and more!
Make a Boat Engine From a Candle
NC Museum of Natural Sciences
Putt-putt boats are engineering in action! These little candle-powered crafts sputter and cough just like a real motorboat and it’s all thanks to the power of steam.
May The Acoustic Radiation Force Be With You
Joint Department of Biomedical Engineering, UNC & NC State University
While we can’t hear ultrasound, or sound at frequencies above our hearing range, did you know that we can use ultrasound to do amazing things like levitating light objects in the air? Come see if the acoustic radiation force is with you, with fun and hands-on demonstrations of what happens when you pit the forces of gravity and ultrasound against each other! Navigate your way though an aerial obstacle course, try to build the tallest tower or make particles waltz in a perfectly choreographed dance, all with sound!
My Community
NC Museum of Natural Sciences
In My Community, you can draw your neighborhood and talk about what you like best or least about the places you live. You can check out the Changing Communities, and think of ways these spaces could be improved to help people, the planet and the economy. Then you can imagine how these solutions and others could be applied to your own neighborhood, and change your drawings to make your neighborhoods better today and in the future.
Mystery of the Cone Snail and the Blood Brain Barrier
NC Museum of Natural Sciences
What is the connection between a South Pacific cone snail, a Trojan horse, a person in severe pain and biotech research at a New York university? Stop by and discover the answer!
NC Green Power
NC Green Power is a nonprofit improving our state’s environment by supporting renewable energy, carbon offset projects and providing grants for solar installations at K–12 schools. Since 2003, their donors have helped to support more than 1,000 projects right here in North Carolina. Come see their table for a solar activity and learn about their Solar+ Schools program.
NCSU CAMAL 3D Printing and Design
NC State University
This station will feature 3D printing and design demonstrations.
NC Youth and Family Voices Amplified
Play a fun and interactive game involving spinning a wheel and answering questions in order to win prizes.
Pack a Space Telescope
NC Museum of Natural Sciences
Space telescopes can offer us better, clearer views of the universe (and of our own planet) than Earth-based telescopes can, but getting these large, delicate pieces of equipment into orbit is tricky. In “Exploring the Universe: Pack a Space Telescope,” participants get a taste of the challenges faced by engineers in designing and building complicated tools that can fold up to fit inside a spacecraft, and then unfold again when they deploy in orbit. Participants will design, build, pack and deploy their own model space telescopes in this activity.
Plant Cells Live!
NC State University
Plants perceive and respond to the environment around them at the level of tissues and cells. Come see some cells under the microscope that help plants survive when they are thirsty.
Plants4Kids
NC State University
Plants provide us with food, clothes, medicines, clean air and building materials. This NC State research group studies how plants grow and develop. Come learn about plants and sow some seeds to take home with you!
Powering Into the Future with Power Play
ECG Robotics
Come see and drive award-winning robots from the 2022–2023 First Tech Challenge Power Play season, along with interactive activities including building robot parts and the applications of these robots in keeping our planet clean!
Remote Sensors, Drones and Computer Vision Are Changing How We See Farming
Syngenta
Digital technology is used in multiple ways to help farmers be more productive. Come by and see how digital imagery can help farmers monitor the health of their crop from above, or from their field, at any time and from anywhere.
Science of Dogs
NC Museum of Natural Sciences
How well do you know your pupper pal? Come test your sniffer against “man’s best friend” and see the effects of how the selective breeding of traits created all of the breeds that we know and love today.
Solar Observing
Raleigh Astronomy Club
Visit the Raleigh Astronomy Club on the plaza to learn about the sun, and look through solar telescopes!
Stomp Rockets
NC Museum of Natural Sciences
Learn about how some rockets carry science tools — not scientists — into space, and how a special kind of rocket called a “sounding rocket” can be used for quick, low-flying scientific missions into space. Participants will build and launch their own air rockets to help imagine the challenges and triumphs of engineering spacecraft and launching them into a specific region of space above our planet.
To Float or Not to Float
National Institute of Environmental Health Sciences
In a process called photosynthesis, plants convert light energy, water and carbon dioxide into oxygen and sugar. In addition to providing food for plants to grow, photosynthesis is also responsible for replenishing Earth’s atmosphere with oxygen that we breathe. Thus, it is not only crucial for plants, but also for organisms that rely on oxygen for their survival. The “Float or Not to Float” procedure provides an easy way to measure the rate of photosynthesis and students can use this procedure to investigate which factors affect the rate of photosynthesis.
“Wetlands: Nature’s Sponges,” “Healthy Stream Life,” and” Mammals of NC”
U.S. Army Corps of Engineers
Wetlands are Mother Nature’s sponges. Wetlands serve in removing sediment and pollution from runoff, thereby reducing pollutants to waters downstream. This exhibit utilizes a model to demonstrate wetlands’ ability to remove sediment, harmful chemicals and other pollutants. You will also see the many creatures that live in a healthy stream system and become familiar with the mammals of North Carolina.
Which Key to Unlock?
Gilead Sciences
Experiment 1: Learning Locks — demonstrates the drug discovery process and/or precision medicine.
Experiment 2: Process Controls — how having a guide or mold helps consistency across products.
Wonderous Worms
NC Museum of Natural Sciences
Have you ever wondered how composting works? Come on by to learn how the Museum uses live worms for composting and feeding our living fishes!