> Open House draws the crowds
Open House draws the crowds
Contact:
PAMR, 778.782.3210
PAMR, 778.782.3210
May 31, 2008
Thousands of visitors enjoyed Simon Fraser University’s 2008 Open House at the Burnaby campus on May 31—with perfect weather and hundreds of volunteers to show them around.
It was a day for people to make a mini-film, take a virtual tour of the biggest machine in the world and make a milkshake with their own pedal power at a bicycle blender station.
There were hundreds of exhibits, interactive displays, lab demonstrations, performances and presentations featuring the university’s academic programs and campus services--and a big carnival at Convocation Mall.
As well, hundreds of high-school students from all over Lower Mainland came to the morning’s Education Fair, to find out more about programs and professors, faculties and facilities at SFU’s three campuses. They were hosted by SFU student volunteers.
“It was a delight to see so many people so interested and engaged,” said SFU president Michael Stevenson.
“It was a day for us to show the community some of what we do and teach and research at SFU, and to thank the community for its interest and its support.
“It is my day, too, to thank all who worked so hard as volunteers before, during and after the Open House. More than 1,000 volunteers from SFU’s students, faculty, staff, alumni and retirees were on hand. They were simply marvelous.”
Demonstrations by faculties, schools and departments at SFU included the Bionic Energy Harvester, a device that looks like a knee brace that generates electricity as you walk. This SFU invention has also generated news and magazine stories all over the world.
Visitors joined biologists for a real-time inventory of life on Burnaby Mountain, extracted DNA (from bananas, using shampoo!), checked out life through a microscope, met pests and parasites, and discovered what dunking your head in a bucket of ice water does to your heart rate.
Guests could create and manipulate digital faces with specialized software, and play a video game that strives to help the homeless. They could also see 3D movies and learn how they are made, and take a virtual 3D tour of the ATLAS experiment.
They could watch SFU Computing Science students demonstrate their award-winning search and rescue robots, navigating a maze to find survivors. Speaking of robots, they could also meet a group of 20 custom-built Chatterbox robots that “live” in a lab, using light and sound to communicate with each other and with humans.
But it wasn’t all hard science: Visitors could also learn about subjects from linguistics to Latin America, from political science to publishing, from French to First Nations, and from Continuing Studies to Contemporary Arts.
They could visit athletic facilities, and get personal tips on sustainability; and view the E.J. Bellocq photography exhibit at the SFU Gallery to get a glimpse into a New Orleans brothel in 1912.
Visitors could also enter to win prizes that included two front-row tickets to the sold-out Kanye West concert, one semester of free tuition, a round-trip airfare for two to Asia or a mountain bike. We’ll announce the winners soon.
It was a day for people to make a mini-film, take a virtual tour of the biggest machine in the world and make a milkshake with their own pedal power at a bicycle blender station.
There were hundreds of exhibits, interactive displays, lab demonstrations, performances and presentations featuring the university’s academic programs and campus services--and a big carnival at Convocation Mall.
As well, hundreds of high-school students from all over Lower Mainland came to the morning’s Education Fair, to find out more about programs and professors, faculties and facilities at SFU’s three campuses. They were hosted by SFU student volunteers.
“It was a delight to see so many people so interested and engaged,” said SFU president Michael Stevenson.
“It was a day for us to show the community some of what we do and teach and research at SFU, and to thank the community for its interest and its support.
“It is my day, too, to thank all who worked so hard as volunteers before, during and after the Open House. More than 1,000 volunteers from SFU’s students, faculty, staff, alumni and retirees were on hand. They were simply marvelous.”
Demonstrations by faculties, schools and departments at SFU included the Bionic Energy Harvester, a device that looks like a knee brace that generates electricity as you walk. This SFU invention has also generated news and magazine stories all over the world.
Visitors joined biologists for a real-time inventory of life on Burnaby Mountain, extracted DNA (from bananas, using shampoo!), checked out life through a microscope, met pests and parasites, and discovered what dunking your head in a bucket of ice water does to your heart rate.
Guests could create and manipulate digital faces with specialized software, and play a video game that strives to help the homeless. They could also see 3D movies and learn how they are made, and take a virtual 3D tour of the ATLAS experiment.
They could watch SFU Computing Science students demonstrate their award-winning search and rescue robots, navigating a maze to find survivors. Speaking of robots, they could also meet a group of 20 custom-built Chatterbox robots that “live” in a lab, using light and sound to communicate with each other and with humans.
But it wasn’t all hard science: Visitors could also learn about subjects from linguistics to Latin America, from political science to publishing, from French to First Nations, and from Continuing Studies to Contemporary Arts.
They could visit athletic facilities, and get personal tips on sustainability; and view the E.J. Bellocq photography exhibit at the SFU Gallery to get a glimpse into a New Orleans brothel in 1912.
Visitors could also enter to win prizes that included two front-row tickets to the sold-out Kanye West concert, one semester of free tuition, a round-trip airfare for two to Asia or a mountain bike. We’ll announce the winners soon.