Hello, I'm Maria D'Chrisina, editor-in-chief at Scientific American
and we're live here from the show floor
of the USA Science and Engineering festival and expo,
which is going on Saturday April 26th and Sunday, April 27th,
at the Walter E. Washington Convention Center
here in Washington, D.C.
In the next half hour we're going to chat with some exciting guests.
We'll meet the two founders of the festival,
Larry Bock and Ray O. Johnson.
We'll learn about the awesome booth at Lockheed Martin,
the festival's founding and presenting host,
and we'll visit with the Society of American Magicians.
Last, we'll talk about some cool stuff
here at the Scientific American, which is also a festival sponsor.
At Scientific American's booth,
you can try our easy-to-do brain science home activities,
the paleontologist with the shark finding program,
Paleo Quest scientist and Zeiss microscopes.
Check out some exciting new offerings
in STEM education from Macmillan science and education,
And take part in actually editing
a scientific journal for kids called "Frontiers for Young Minds."
So now let's meet Larry Bach and Ray O Johnson,
the awesome co-founders
of the USA Science and Engineering Festival.
Ray is also Lockheed Martin's senior vice president
and chief technology officer.
Thank you very much for joining me.
Our pleasure, Thank you.
It's really my pleasure.
So tell us, why did you create the festival?
and what is going on here this weekend?
You know our premise is society gets what it celebrates
so we celebrate athletes, pop stars,
Hollywood actors and actresses.
And we generate a lot of wanna-be's
but we don't celebrate science and engineering.
So our goal was to put on
the world's largest celebration of science and engineering.
That's awesome, awesome goal.
What are some (audio glitch) here
and how many people are you expecting this weekend?
We have literally a thousand organizations here
doing over 3,000 hands-on interactive exhibits
and 150 stage shows.
So you will see everything here
from the Orion Space Capsule, the Surgical Robot,
the virtual reality environment at one end of the extreme,
making structures with marshmallows and toothpicks
at the other end of the extreme.
I especially want to try the marshmallows and toothpicks.
I have to say, I'm a little bit hungry this morning.
So, thank you.
So Ray, we're here at the Lockheed Martin booth.
I got to tell you guys, it's awesome; it's huge.
There's a lot of amazing activities.
I think I counted more than 350.
And kids can take a trip to (inaudible)
(inaudible) robot which I was checking out yesterday
(Audio glitch)
Tell me about. These are just a few of them.
Tell me a little bit more about those. What are some of the things?
We do have over 40 exhibits here,
but we're part of hundreds of exhibits and thousands of demonstrations
that are taking place over the next two days here.
We're allowing the visitors to explore some of the new areas.
[?] working robotics, some of the flight simulators,
which we're well known for and they love, [?] how to fly the [?] and the F-35
and also renewable energy, and some of the problems in the future.
I think that's what we will be focusing on here.
When kids think about going into STEM careers,
That's science, technology, engineering and math,
they think of difficult subjects.
I have to take Calculus, I need to understand Physics,
so it seems very difficult and very hard.
Therefore, a lot of kids are not going into STEM fields and those areas [?]
What we're doing in this festival, as you've said, the largest festival
of its kind in the world, what we're doing is,
through the hands-on experience, getting kids excited.
And letting them understand that they can have
that same thrill of victory that you get in sports
by engaging in problem solving in engineering [?].
In fact, we're gonna have some science cheerleaders here
a little bit later on today.
We have basketball players here, and what the cheerleaders
and the basketball players and sports figures help us do
is prove that STEM is cool.
Yeah, I think that's awesome.
- It's more fuel for curious minds. - Exactly.
And, as Lockheed and others have shown us,
if you put that effort it will push you far.
I really appreciate it, it was so super to speak with you
Larry and Ray, thank you so much.
Is there anything you want to leave with the folks while we are waiting for [?] to come up?
- I would say, get here early. - Yeah! -Number one.
And this event will take more than two days to do
so plan on both Saturday and Sunday.
Yeah, I think we're gonna have hundreds of thousands of visitors
here today, and the nice thing about doing this in Washington
is we have a diverse crowd. What this does is it [?] STEM down
[audio glitch] underrepresented today in science [?]
and we need those people to enter the engineering and STEM fields.
So that's why Washington is such a great place to have this.
Yeah. I couldn't agree with you more. I really think science is an engine
of human prosperity and wellbeing so I'm psyched that you guys are here.
- Thank you. - Thanks so much.
- Thank you.
Great having you, I know you're really busy today, thanks for joining us.
- Thank you. - My pleasure.
Thank you.
So now we're gonna be joined by Christopher Bodges,
of the Society of American Magicians
and he's going to talk a little bit about cool science [?] and such you can see
at his [?] - Thank you. - Tell us what's going on today, Chris.
I am going to start by telling you why we're here
because a lot of people might be interested in why the magicians are
at a Science and Engineering festival.
And the answer is that magic is really just science mixed with creativity.
The illusions that we create are based on principals of science,
engineering technology and math
and we give them creative presentations to make them entertaining
but a lot of scientists and engineers are hobby magicians
because of the creative aspect and the background magic has in those disciples.
I actually attended a whole conference once about studies [?] illusions [?]
It's fascinating stuff and we love to do it. We love to share.
At our booth we have lots of hands-on activities
Some magical illusions, some optical illusions
that kids can try and adults, for that matter, can try hands-on
and see what's going on
One of those is this. - O yeah good, I'm glad you brought some.
Let's put our hands on it
It's just a two liter bottle filled with water
There's a ketchup packet floating inside, as ketchup packets tend to do
But with a little bit of magic
That ketchup packet - (laughing)
sinks!
See it went all the way down, that's cool.
A little more magic it will come right back.
Now, I know magicians are notoriously uh, careful I would say
about sharing some of their secrets - This is true - but if people come to your booth
maybe they'll learn a little bit about the science [?]
They can learn a little bit about that what we do, we never share our secrets
with anyone who is not a magician.
But if you demonstrate the fact that you are interested in learning magic
We will share some secrets with you.
And to that end we have a book available to anyone who's interested.
It's an ebook, but I printed one so you could see it.
It says "STEM Magic"
This is filled with magic tricks that are based on principals of
science, technology engineering and math. They're all things that you can do at home.
Some of them are things that you can print out, there are a couple optical illusions
in here that you can print out and cut out and otherwise...
That's super [?]
Otherwise you can read the instructions and learn to do magic.
And so you can make it on your own
We also have at our booth a full-size illusion that you can get into
We can remove your head from your body
Not actually. But it sure looks like it. And it makes for a really great [?]
I'm trying it out! It's not like that actually.
But we don't see the body, we just see the head.
And you can take a picture where you have your head on a sword.
So you are welcome to come and get your head removed.
The reattachment process is slightly painful and involves some duct tape.
But it's a lot of fun and it's a great picture to share with your friends.
And we have some magicians there who are showing some magic for fun.
Awesome.
Thanks very much. Did you have something else for showing us now?
I'll show you one more thing. - One more surprise
Magicians don't [audio glitch] couple of people, I found that out recently.
A guy came to me and asked me if I could change a dollar.
I said of course I can, I'm a magician.
He said he wanted four quarters, so I took his dollar
and I folded it, one, two, three, four times [?] and squeeze.
It's getting very teeny
And I opened it back up and I showed him
how I ... change ... a dollar. - Oh man!
I've been staring right at it and I do not know how he did that.
See, it's one dollar, it's four quarters. Get it?
Yeah, it's four quarters, I get it. Awesome!
He didn't like the joke. Or the trick.
Was he [?] ? - Yeah. - That's probably why.
So the best thing I could do was to fold it back up.
Give it another squeeze.
And return it the way he found it so he could get his change somewhere else.
(laughing) Chris that was awesome, thanks a million for joining us
here at the USA Science and Engineering Festival and I hope people will come by and
learn more about the science behind the illusion.
I hope so, too. We're happy to see ya. Thanks. - Thanks a lot.
So now, let's meet Jason Osbourne and Aaron Alfred of Helioquest.
Jason and Aaron, you're joining us actually- don't be scared, I won't bite you.
You're joining us at the Scientific American booth, which is at 13:11
And tell us what you're doing with the kids
You've already been [?] that you're doing awesome things, so let's see.
Awesome. We have a lot of hands-on for kids in the Scientific American booth.
We have 'Shark Finder', which is a hands-on science project,
where kids can actually find and discover new occurrences or even possibly
new species of sharks.
Absolutely. We're really excited about that. We also have about a quarter of a ton
of fossils that we give away to folks that come by and ask really good questions.
And these fossils are just like this. - Can I have a hold on to one of these?
Oh, absolutely. - Look at this. It's a little heavy.
What is this [?]
So this is a vertebral whale. A small whale. And we're giving
hundreds and hundreds of pounds of fossils away to kids.
You mean I could get a whale? - Absolutely.
Actually you could just keep that one for yourself.
(laughing) That's cool.
And then we have hands-on for kids as well. - What is that?