#powerofideastour

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Stop 47: Ottawa

This is it.  After 46 stops across our beautiful country, we have finally come to our final destination, Ottawa.  We set up at the Canada Science and Technology Museum that just re-opened this past November after a 3-year renovation. The venue also hosted our final Innovation Festival, where we came together with Actua and the Institute of Quantum Computing one last time.  We spent a total of 10 days at the museum, which included a lot of lasts, such as the last presentation, clearly we were a mixed bag of emotions.

Some of us took the time to explore Ottawa and visit Parliament, the Museum of Nature, and the Diefenbunker. While others took it easy and relaxed before the busy holidays up ahead.

Our last few days were filled with laughter, tears, and Nick! He came back for the last hurrah, reuniting a part of the original team who met just over a year ago.

We celebrated the end of Innovation150 with two events.  We had a wrap party complete with not one, but two bonfires by the lake to keep us warm in on that chilly Ottawa night.

The following day we had an official fancy farewell of Innovation150 with all our sponsors.  One last time seeing everyone from Ingenium – Canada's Museums of Science and Innovation,  Canadian Association of Science Centre, Canadian Association of Science Centres, Actua, and the Perimeter Institute.  Once everyone said their goodbyes, we got to work and tore down our exhibit and loaded it onto our truck for a final time.

It was great seeing everyone who worked on Innovation150 come together and celebrate the amazing year we all had.  To put it in perspective: we had over 100 000 people visit our exhibit this year! I know I speak for all 12 tour members that this year has been unforgettable, we met some pretty incredible people,  visited some epic places, had some mind-blowing experiences, and most importantly made some life-long friends.

For the last time, thanks for hosting us Canada Science and Technology Museum!

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Shout out from St John!

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Stop 35: St. Bernard, Nova Scotia

We headed to St. Bernard, Nova Scotia, a small community just a few kilometres from the rural village of Weymouth for our next stop. We stayed in the lovely Goodwin Hotel in Weymouth which overlooked a small river and basically the entire "downtown" area, which consisted of a few restaurants, a small visitor centre and library. The weather again was amazing and many of us spent some time sitting outside soaking in the sun, reading our books and admiring mother nature.  

Since our truck was able to back up right to the gym doors of St. Mary's Bay Academy, our load-in was fairly easy (thank goodness). During our time there, we received some great feedback from everyone at the school. For instance, we had teachers approach us and ask us whether or not students could come back again and see the exhibit. We also had students who were extremely inspired by what we were doing - one even reached an epiphany as towards what he should do in the future.

We spent Thanksgiving in Weymouth and had a delicious turkey dinner at the hotel. We decided on our days off to do a small hike to the Balancing rock, a vertical column of rock which is actually balancing on it's tip! Here are some pictures of our adventures (photo props to J.T. and his drone): 

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Stop 33: Sydney, Nova Scotia

We are on Cape Breton Island, specifically in Sydney, Nova Scotia, the home of the world’s largest fiddle at 60 feet!

Also the home of Cape Breton University, our 33rd stop on our tour around Canada.  The Verschuren Centre was a great, open venue with a second story balcony, and you know what that mean: some really high jumping beads! Watch how high they go:

We also had a special visitor in Sydney, none other than Dr. Art McDonald.  Dr. McDonald grew up in Sydney, and wanted to return for a special presentation at his alma mater, Sydney Academy.

We even made the front page of the Cape Breton Post!

On our day off we decided to drive up a bit of the famous Cabot Trail, its a lengthy drive to do in a day, so we went to Ingonish and spent some time on the beach!

That’s all for now! Thanks for hosting us Cape Breton University!

Now we are packed up and moving on to Anigonish!

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Stop 26: Timmins, ON

Welcome to Timmins, Ontario on the Mattagami River!  

Here we set up at Science Village, an initiative by Science Timmins where visitors can play, discover, learn and love science.  The Timmins Press featured a great piece on the support Science Village has received from the community, and how as a thank you they waived admission for the Power of Ideas exhibit. 

This stop we took some video that shows what it’s like to set up the exhibit in science centres.  Take a look!

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Stop 25: Thunder Bay, ON

Let the festivities begin!  

We were fortunate enough to have a spot along the water front in Thunder Bay for their Canada Day celebration!! This was an especially exciting day since it’s Canada’s 150th celebration.  We were only set up for one day, and it was the first time we set up outside.  Luckily we were sheltered from the pouring rain the day before Canada Day and the sun came out to give us beautiful weather just as people arrived.  Instead of writing about this experience, I decided to make a video.  Check it out below!

Thanks again to Thunder Bay for having us for their celebration!

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Stop 21: Innisfail, Alberta

          The town of Innisfail sits right between the cities of Edmonton and Calgary, just south of Red Deer city.  This was a quick stop for us with two days of the exhibit and presentation before we tore down and headed to Edmonton.  

          We were one team member short in this city as well. Ashley flew back to Windsor, Ontario for her university convocation (Congratulations Ashley!).  But even without the extra hand, this was a smooth venue with great weather, easy access to the school and a large open space for presentations.

            Jeff explaining the optics and focal point of our concave Spaghettification mirror.  

          We had visitors who were fascinated by one of our exhibits, not only for the interesting effect but also the science behind it.  The Spaghettification mirror is used to simulate what would happen if someone fell into a black hole.  Now, imagine this.  You’re floating around in space, minding your own business when all of a sudden you get sucked into a black hole, an area with some of the strongest gravity in the universe!  As you fall in feet first, the pull on your feet being closer to the black hole will be that much stronger then on your head, your body will be stretched out into an incredibly thin strand… like spaghetti!  A wild concept to think about and fun to imagine with our huge curved mirror. Jeff and these visitors got into the science as well as the optics of the mirror.  Notice how Jeff’s image is flipped upside down while the visitors who are standing closer are still right side up.  

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Stop 18: Moose Jaw, Saskatchewan

Our 18th stop takes us to the small but lively city of Moose Jaw, SK. The wonderful people at Lindale School were very welcoming and excited to be hosting our exhibit and presentations. 

For this stop, we decided to do something a bit different and make a vlog about our experience here. Check it out below!

We had a day off after we dismantled our exhibit, and we decided to explore downtown. We did a bit of souvenir shopping and stopped at a nice cafe.  A highlight that we weren’t able to capture on video was exploring the Tunnels of Moose Jaw, an eye-opening attraction that portrayed the difficult history of Chinese immigrants to Western Canada in the late 19th and early 20th centuries.