The Mag Lab

This weekend the National High Magnetic Field Lab had their annual Open House, and it was awesome. It was our first time at the Open House, and we really didn't expect to see much, other than the 45 Tesla Electro Magnet. What we found was that the entire complex had been set up with different experiments and demonstrations, each designed to get kids interested in science.

Firebeard and Thing 2 visited the Cryogenics Lab and saw the Liquid Nitrogen rocket car, and flash frozen flowers, while Thing 1 and I visited the big magnets in the DC Field Building.

Thing 1 wasn't very impressed in the world's largest magnet, because "it looked like a bunch of tubes" (her words), but the other demonstrations in the magnet cells were pretty awesome. She especially like the electric pickle, the cloud made in a bottle, and the thunder tube.

In the end, Thing 1's favorite part was the exhibit set up by the Sci Girls, a groups of girls just a few years older than her. They were showing the conservation of angular momentum with bike wheels, and making cloud bubbles with dry ice. Thing one didn't want to leave. It makes me wonder if she will be demonstrating in a few years.

Next year we are planning to go earlier and see some of the demonstrations were didn't get to see this year, like the MagLev Train in the Applied Superconductivity Center and the hydrogen powered toy car in the center for alternative power systems (Hint, hint, Mag Lag open house organizers). I also hope that next year they will have the robots that Thing 2 was wishing for.