Children's Museum Exhibit in Oak Ridge
The Children's Museum of Oak Ridge, Tennessee, is featuring an exhibit entitled Nanotechnology: The Science of Making Things Smaller. This traveling exhibit, designed by students and professors at Purdue University, in partnership with EPICS, Discovery Park, and NASA, will be on display April 2 - May 31, 2005.
Come explore the world of nanotechnology and its applications in today's society! See a working LEGO™ replica of a real Scanning Probe Microscope (SPM) and learn how LEGOs™ can be used to teach some of the fundamental principles underlying nano-science.
SPMs are not like traditional microscopes. They can see objects that are millions of times smaller than those commonly observed by an optical microscope. SPMs "see" by probing nanoscale objects with a small sharp tip having nanometer size.
SPMs can also manipulate nano-scale objects. Scientists are divising techniques to build nano-devices piece by piece, in ways that are very similar to the construction of complex LEGO™ landscapes.
Our LEGO™ SPM is a working model that reproduces the various functions of a research-level instrument. By slowly touching a LEGO™ surface with a tip, a three-dimensional image can be generated and displayed on a computer. The LEGO™ SPM effectively deomonstrates how real SPMs provide a window into the nano world.
In addition to the LEGO™ SPM, the exhibit also uses animations to explain the principles and achievements of nanotechnology to middle school students. Posters provide more detailed information for those with a higher level of interest. SPM images from research labs around the world illustrate the detailed information that SPMs are capable of providing about the nano world.
This traveling exhibit was designed by students and professors at Purdue University, in partnership with EPICS, Discovery Park, and NASA. It will be on display at the Children's Museum of Oak Ridge during April 2 - May 31, 2005.
If you can't make it to Tennessee, you can still check out the animations for this exhibit, which are being hosted on the nanoHUB.
Take the Nano Challenge!
Members of the Purdue EPICS LEGO SPM team invite elementary or middle school students to take the Nano Challenge and win a Mindstorms Robotics Invention kit or other cool LEGO™ sets! Describe in 1000 words or less how you would use LEGOs™ to better illustrate the principles underlying nanotechnology to other children your age. Drawings and sketches to illustrate your ideas are encouraged. Find more details on this site.