Sciencey
Lipscomb University hosted a free outside science extravaganza, so the kids and I headed over there to explore.
I found it interesting and well presented; children reserving their opinions in that way they do. (I’m sure they loved it. 😉)
Buds and I took them out for lunch after we toured Buddie’s new office space. That ensured the day was a win.
We learned where to park at Lipscomb and how to use the University shuttle system, which is another huge win for future events.
The science event was a series of trailers from the Oak Ridge National Laboratory. We hadn’t heard about Oak Ridge before, and what a fascinating place it is.
The overview of the event:
The first trailer we toured was about the supercomputer at Oak Ridge: Summit!
Summit is the most powerful supercomputer in the world. They are very proud of that.
There were some interesting exhibits explaining how super computing works. The folks from Oak Ridge that were the presenters in this trailer were passionate about the subject, which adds to the interest.
From here we wandered to the trailer entitled:
This was my favorite trailer because it talked about the 3000 professionals who support the 2000 scientists at Oak Ridge.
Maintenance and fire fighters, engineers and janitors, tour guides and human resources, a small city needs all the things. One of the presenters and I talked about helping people understand the variety of paths that lead us to where we end up. He has a degree in Business Management, ended up at Oak Ridge in their delivery department, and when a management role came open, he had the combination of degree and experience that made the role a great fit.
The person we talked to was standing next to a display that had his picture on it, which was pretty cool.
From here we moseyed over to learn about climate science, radiation, and 3D printing:
3D printed chair above.
I can shoot lasers with my eyes, Buster with his mouth.
After these last trailers the schoolers had begun to show up, so we headed back to find our shuttle.
Buddie’s new office and lunch at a burger place with great sweet potato fries was a delicious ending.
