Science Museum News

New capabilities allow “roboats” to change configurations to form pop-up bridges, stages, and other structures.MIT’s fleet of robotic boats has been updated with new capabilities to “shapeshift,” by autonomously disconnecting and reassembling into a variety of configurations, to form floating structures in Amsterdam’s many canals.The autonomous boats — rectangular hulls equipped with sensors, thrusters, microcontrollers, GPS modules, cameras, and other hardware — are being developed…

UK school, the Dr Thomlinson Church of England Middle School from Rothbury, Northumberland, has been named as the winner of the 2013 Rolls-Royce Science Prize; an annual competition which celebrates and rewards excellence in science teaching. Each year, Rolls-Royce awards a total of £120,000 in cash prizes to schools who implement motivational science teaching. 2,000 schools and colleges registered for this year's prize, and the winning school was selected from a group of nine finalists who attended an awards ceremony at London's Science Museum.

After several days of waiting for favorable weather, the MS Tûranor Planet Solar, the largest solar boat in the world, left the city of Boston, carrying three scientific team members from the University of Geneva (UNIGE), and a researcher from the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution, the largest center of its kind in the world, with whom UNIGE is collaborating for this expedition. This important stopover in the capital of Massachusetts was crucial in the planning of the “DeepWater” expedition’s itinerary…

Building America’s Canals, an interactive exhibition revealing the construction and operation of the nation’s human-built waterways, opens January 30, 2010, at Mystic Seaport. Organized by the National Canal Museum of Easton, PA, Building America’s Canals blends history and science through hands-on activities and encourages visitors of all ages to step into the roles of lock tender, canal engineer, crane operator and canalboat captain. Divided into four sections relating to key canal structures – locks, masonry arches, cranes and aqueducts – each area will feature accompanying interpretive panels with photographs, diagrams and text detailing the historical context for America’s canals.