Join us for a two-day Science Festival hosted at OMSI. The Oregon Science Festivals brings together families and individuals to celebrate STEAM education in unexpected ways!
Explore our full list of vendors and activities below.
Workshops
In addition to the interactive exhibits around the science festival, the workshops are 60 minute in-depth experiences. First-come, first-served. Open to all ages unless otherwise noted.
Classroom 1
Participants make magnetic slime and use magnets to move it around, exploring the properties of magnetism.
In this workshop, Archivist Copperbeard from the land of Luna Nueva, will demonstrate how magicians (pure charlatans compared to the powerful magic users back in his homeland) would use video projection and glass to create holographic illusions. Then he will walk participants through the building of their own 3D holographic screens that can be used with the 3D Holograph videos on YouTube from their handheld magic boxes.
Using Ableton Live, a digital audio workstation, we’ll be able to use the softwares sampling capability to manipulate sounds of Oregon wildlife into dance beats, textures, and more!
Participants create self-watering terrariums, learning about plant biology and sustainable gardening practices
Lectures, Entertainment, and Documentaries
In addition to the interactive exhibits around the science festival, the Empirical Stage showcases lectures, entertainment and documentaries. All activities are free; first come, first served.
Empirical Stage
With Liz Everling, Whisker Welfare.
With Mark Hallett, Paloeartist.
With Seth Chaffee, Head of Innovation and Narrative Strategy at Deep Sky and Barret Thomson, Creative Director at Deep Sky.
We’ll explore the art of crafting animation that captivates, excites, and moves audiences, by using visual storytelling techniques designed to engage through the natural chemical responses of the brain.
With David Shinsel, Retired Robotics Architect.
With Nico Spadafora, The Fossil Team.
With Chanel Hason, Elakha Alliance.
Discover the mysterious world that exists between and connects all life on Earth.
Vendors
Roaming
Meet Robot, EB-6, and learn about the trade off of functionality and aesthetics in robots that interact with people.
- In case you were unable to attend the kick off event on Friday, Dr. Macdonald will be available Saturday morning from 9:30am-10:30am selling and signing her books, Star Trek: My First Book of Space and Star Trek: My First Book of Colors.
Esplanade
Mixing real fruit with berries on the spot to create a delicious ice cream.
Greenway
Students/Families participate in making art that ties to native culture.
Five selected plants from Lan Su Chinese Garden will be brought to the vendor booth, along with explanatory materials that educate festival-goers about the history, medicinal properties, and uses of these plants.
Front Plaza
More info coming soon!
The Oaks Park Roller Rink , which has been providing fun, safe and exciting experiences for children since 1906, has added a new dimension to their game: Education! Oaks Park Roller Rink has combined science, technology, engineering and math (STEM) with roller skating to help children learn and experience concepts first hand.
The STEM lesson plans are designed by experts across the country including PHD candidates and certified teachers. The program uses enthusiastic and qualified educators to show that STEM is not only found in everyday experiences, but it can also be FUN! The hands on activities that relate roller skating to STEM capture the student’s attention and help explain difficult-to-teach concepts.
We’re the Portland State Aerospace Society, an interdisciplinary and open source student project at Portland State University that builds rockets, rocket engines, satellites, and satellite ground stations. Join us at OMSI Science Fair to see the latest in aerospace coming out of PSU!
Come get up close and personal with prehistoric fossils, learn from Fossil Team staff, and color in your own long extinct creature at the Fossil Team pop up museum!
Back Courtyard
Demonstrate how to build a foldable kayak and canoe.
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We will demonstrate our robot from the 2024 FIRST Robotics Challenge game, along with elements from the field. We will also have a selection of hand on activities for children to engage with.
Empowering teens to do amazing things and have the “hardest fun they ever had.” We’ll bring our carnival game robot for event-goers to test drive and see how high they can score. We’ll also demo our robot from Washington State Championships last year, where we placed 4th in the state.
Participation in the ORTOP presentation for FIRST robotics.
Rewild Portland is an environmental education focused non-profit organization serving Portland, Oregon and the surrounding wild and rural communities. Our mission is to create cultural and environmental resilience through the education of earth-based arts, traditions, and technologies. This mission comes to life in the form of educational workshops and programs, community-building events, and ecological restoration. At our booth we are demonstrating fire-by-friction, how to make felt from sheep’s wool, and basket weaving with invasive species. Participants can try our fire making tools and learn how to make cordage and beads from natural materials.
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Create your own unique keychain alongside ESCO engineers! You’ll learn about the casting process applying similar techniques used by ESCO teams worldwide to make infrastructure and mining products.
Empirical Theater Lobby
Meet Their Needs! A science-based, whole-animal approach to behavior.
Learn about the mental and physical needs of your dogs and cats. Discover their unique communication methods, enrichment preferences, species-specific needs, and domestication history.
Table activities: Enrichment activities, Q&A interactive board, video demonstrations of body language, printouts & take-homes.
What are local STEAM professionals creating and discovering? Come find out at Meet a Scientist where we feature STEAM professionals from across the Pacific Northwest, who work in fields ranging from animation to public health—and everything in between! Featured scientists bring tools, specimens, and hands-on activities to share with visitors of all ages.
Join us to learn about the ShakeAlert Earthquake Early Warning System (EEWS), how to prepare for seismic events and where to access community resources, and about the science behind earthquake-related phenomena.
A collection of different Lego-built modules that work together to move small balls in a circuit and show different design and mechanical concepts that can be created with Lego
Past and present student participants in the University of Oregon Science and Comics Initiative will be tabling with the comics they’ve made, sharing their comics-making processes, and guiding interested participants through nonfiction comics-making activities. The Science and Comics Initiative pairs undergraduate artists with researchers across UO to collaborate on comics about the researcher’s work. Past topics include bioelectric communication in zebrafish, quantum entanglement, and the process of recovering mobility after a stroke. Art supplies will be provided at the table.
Featured Hallway
Test out your recycling knowledge with the Habitat ReStore! Learn about what everyday metal materials are recyclable and can be diverted out of our local landfills. Use a special magnet to identify different types of recyclable materials.
The kids will revive one meter of tape, one marshmallow, and some uncooked spaghetti noodles. They will work to make the highest tower while keeping the marshmallow at the top of the tower. They will have 7 minutes to do this. At the end of the time their tower will have to stand for 15 minutes for them to be successful. We will have a lesson explaining the science behind this experiment.
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Play our 5 minute pop up escape room, Biohazard! Can you find the cure before the biohazard is released to the world?
Catch the Wave! is an interactive booth with experiment stations to help you learn about electromagnets — what they are, how to control them, and how they are used to record and play back sound waves.
Can it go in your curbside recycling bin? Play our game to find out! Learn all about why some materials are recyclable and others are not – the science behind some common products may surprise you! And while you are here, Recycling Specialists at Metro are on hand to answer all your burning questions related to reducing, reusing, and recycling in the Portland Metro region.
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Oregon Science Olympiad is your local chapter of the Science Olympiad national team-based STEM competition network. We invite you to try out a sampling of our engaging events for the 2025 season! Learn how you can start a Science Olympiad team at your child’s school, volunteer at our State Tournament, or repurpose our events as homeschool or extracurricular fun. Oregon Science Olympiad is a 501(c)(3) nonprofit serving middle school and high school students from across the state.
Join us at the ReClaim It booth to participate in a collaborative creative reuse project using materials we’ve gleaned from the Metro Transfer Station (aka “the dump”). We’ll provide the tools, materials and inspiration to help you freely explore your creativity!
Planetarium Hallway
AKA Science provides highly-engaging, hands-on afterschool science enrichment to children in grades K-8. We primarily serve SUN and Boys & Girls Club locations in Portland that have a high economic need, high percentage of students that identify as Black, Brown, Melanated, Indigenous, Latino/a/x, Immigrant, and Asian, and locations that are situated in East County and North Portland. Kit topics include biology, chemistry, engineering, physics, environmental science, and forensic science.
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Build Fidget Spinners with iUrban Teen.
Interact with theatrical set models to see how color theory effects stage lighting and costumes, and see how the physics of a counterweight fly system allow heavy set pieces to easily move up and down on the stage.
Natural Science Hall
The paleoecology of sabertooths, steppe lions and other felines that lived in the Ice Age.
When tabling we provide an interactive component, brochures and other educational materials, reference collections, childrens materials (books, coloring books), stickers, small prizes or relevant toys, mosquito repellent wipes and are available to answer questions from community members on a wide range of urban creatures, both wild and domestic. The items we bring are complementary, there is no charge for any items at our table or a charge for Vector services in general.
Auditorium
Do you know the warning signs for a tsunami? Where to shelter during an earthquake? Or where your nearest designated evacuation spot is? With the increase in extreme weather, it’s more important than ever to be ready for earthquakes, tsunamis, winter storms, flooding, landslides, droughts, heatwaves, and wildfires.
The Pacific Northwest Disaster Guide focuses on specific natural disasters, and provides precise and helpful preparation skills through illustrations, quizzes, and guided activities fit for all ages.
The book tells the stories of the Garcia-Miller family after an earthquake, Naomi and her family surviving a tsunami, Nat and her parents working together during a winter storm, and many others. With the one comic that could save your life, you’ll be ready to take action whenever disaster strikes.
I will offer an opportunity for kids and adults to play with Culzzles products while sharing information about the artwork. Culzzles offers culturally inclusive puzzles, games and more for kids and adults.
A stationery booth with prints, stickers and keychains. I am from a STEM background and I will have a few STEM/Tech related stickers and prints.
I will be roaming around the festival painting various scenes (I call my easel my “slow camera”), and posting the results in a booth.
Play games made by game developers in Portland with the Portland Indie Game Squad! See what art, code, music, and interactive projects people are creating in your local community; learn about how to meet others & find new tools to develop your own games; and ask questions of gamedevs & community organizers that have been long term participants in hobbyist and industry groups!
Oregon Destination will do a hands-on challenge – attendees will build protection for a grape (using paper, paperclips and toothpicks) so that it survives a grape crusher.
Table featuring interactive Antarctic media, Virtual Reality Penguins, and various education on ocean ecosystems.
An educational and fun drawing game that teaches the basics of drawing, promotes creativity, encourages cooperation, and introduces an array of fruits and veggies. Each player selects at random, one fruit card and one veggie card. They then imagine what the two will look like as a hybrid and draw them. Game comes in 4 rounds (Sketch, Outline, Color, & Naming). In each round, the players pass their drawing to another player who then continues off the drawing. Drawings are shared in the end to see the collaborative efforts. Great for all ages and skill levels.
Basic demonstration of setting up a sound system.
At the First Fantasy Books booth, participants will learn how the light that surrounds us contains all the colors of the rainbow! It is when the light gets broken up and reflected back through “pigments,” that we are able to see the different colors the light contains. Archivists from the magic kingdom of Luna Nueva will demonstrate experiments using food coloring, while teaching about light absorption. Then each participant will get to make their own mini magical potion to take home!
Using synths attached to fruits and veggies, you can make some noise!
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Come and find the perfect accessories and pieces to decorate and inspire – where science whimsical style combine! All handmade with love by Aii Crafts.
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Fishbowl
The University of Oregon’s Reality Lab (OR Lab) is a leader in innovative development and use of immersive media technologies, namely augmented and virtual reality (AR/VR). We propose an OR Lab booth wherein visitors will be able to use our VR equipment and experience various of OR-lab created STEAM experiences. The booth will be equipped with two VR stations, each featuring a unique science-related VR experience for visitors to try.
Experience #1 – Project SHELL: An interactive VR experience where users embody a Loggerhead sea turtle and learn about ongoing marine conservation efforts.
Experience #2 – Virtual Excursions for Science Learning (VESL): VESL is a multi-player VR experience where users embody a marine biologist and embark on an ocean science research cruise to study plankton in the Pacific.
Note: As this experience requires multiple players, we will have scheduled (virtual) departure times every hour where visitors will be able to embark on the guided research cruise in VR. We will have 3-4 VR headsets available to accommodate multiple visitors for each session.
Main Lobby
Environment Oregon Research & Policy Center is a grassroots environmental advocacy organization that believes in a green Oregon – one that protects and restores wild places and offers us and our children the opportunity to live healthier, more enriching lives.
We’re working to protect ecosystems all the way from the high desert of the Owyhee Canyonlands to the rocky coast of Oregon’s beaches and ocean. At our vendor table, we’d like to engage and educate event attendees on these campaigns and environmental stewardship through artistic activities. Activities could include designing ocean ecosystems and wildlife with plastic/marine debris collected from our ocean, water color paintings using pigments and dyes naturally gathered from Oregon’s landscapes, or sign making linking art and environmental activism.
From idea to prototype in 60 days! Invent Oregon is the state’s largest collegiate prototyping competition focusing on impact driven solutions for today’s most pressing problems. Students from all disciplines are empowered through Invent Oregon’s experiential education, mentorship, and up to $2,500 in development grants to take their invention from concept to model. Finalists present their inventions on stage in June and compete for $30,000 in cash prizes. | The Verizon Innovative Learning Stem Achievers Program hosted by the PSU Center for Entrepreneurship is an intensive three-week program that introduces STEM curriculum and hands-on learning to underserved middle schoolers. Our programming covers 3D product design and 3D printing, game development and design for VR environments, robotic coding, and physical prototyping. We also incorporate design thinking and team-building with a larger project that the students present at the end of camp to a panel of judges.
Representatives from the Oregon Department of Environmental Quality (DEQ)’s Land Quality, Air Quality, and Water Quality divisions will be available to engage in activities and conversation with Science Fest attendees about the agency’s work to protect Oregon’s environment.
We have a wealth of information and publications to hand out, games for adults and youth, as well as pollinator masks to color.
Turbine Hall/Turbine Hall Lunchroom
Make electric arcs up to six feet long at the push of a button. Control duration, starting voltage, and voltage ramp rate to see how these parameters alter arc behavior. Other high voltage activities too including static electricity ball to make hair stand on end and launch foil pans.
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Demonstrations and scientific explanations of 7 different types of high voltage equipment with arc lengths ranging from several inches up to 3 feet.
Interactive Booth focused on Typewriters and their history.