CLEVELAND — With only hours to go until the total solar eclipse takes over the Northeast Ohio’s sky, the Great Lakes Science Center is stirring up excitement in Cleveland with its Total Eclipse Fest.
"We are so excited with our partners at NASA Glenn Research Center to be welcoming the world to Cleveland Ohio,” said Kirsten Ellenbogen, president and CEO at Great Lakes Science Center. "Everywhere you go, there are people doing great hands-on activities around science, around engineering, around art."
NASA Glenn Research Center intern Sarah Gordon, with the graphics and visualization lab, guides aspiring scientists through the world of augmented and virtual reality. It’s a tool to help teach kids about the technologies being built in their own city.
"It's really cool because not only is VR being used internally at NASA, but it's also an awesome tool for us to reach youth and show the public what we're working on,” she said.
In another exhibit, remote-controlled cars drive along a sandy sediment to simulate how NASA robots traverse other planets and the moon. Alex Schepelmann, robotics engineer at NASA Glenn, gives children the freedom to flip and crash their cars as they test the results.
"We have motion tracking pucks attached to remote-controlled cars, and how those move through space is tracked by these four infrared cameras,” said Schepelmann. “And the idea is that all of that allows us to help improve the robot designs."
For Gordon, her passion in science and technology draws from her childhood.
"The future of STEM is like with the youth, so being able to share experiences with kids that I would've loved as a kid is really awesome."
"Hopefully we'll end the day with a couple more future scientists and engineers than we started with,” said Schepelmann.
Total Eclipse Fest 2024 runs from April 6-8 in Cleveland’s North Coast Harbor.
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