A Family Adventure in Science and Technology

A Family Adventure in Science and Technology

(for Past Family Adventure Participants)

July 12 - 15, 2023 

Are you ready to explore virtualworlds? We’re excited to announce W&L’s new Family Adventure, a science and technology program designed for children ages 10 – 16, their parents and grandparents. This unique program will offer a friendly, hands-on introduction to the latest technology at W&L’s IQ Center, home to classrooms, labs, and a makerspace devoted to computer-enhanced technology for visual imaging and digital fabrication. It’s a lot of fun!

Our program will introduce you to exciting new realms of virtual reality through immersive adventures that will enable us to explore complex 3D structures and environments. Dividing into small groups, we’ll enjoy the opportunity to create forms in virtual reality.

Under the guidance of W&L geology professor David Harbor, we’ll also investigate how a drone equipped with cameras and LIDAR (light detection and ranging) can be used to photograph and 3D model the earth. Weather permitting, we’ll venture outside to fly the drone.

Have you visited a technologically advanced museum lately? Meeting with museum professionals, we’ll learn about how artifacts can be scanned and turned into virtual exhibits online. We’ll then have a chance to build our own virtual museum with the virtual reality forms we created earlier.

Finally, we’ll learn how photogrammetry (the science of making reliable measurements with photographs) and terrestrial LIDAR document cultural heritage sites. Art historian George Bent will show us how he uses these technologies in his research project, “Florence As It Was,” a virtual recreation of 15th-century Florence, Italy. We’ll have a chance to see how this technology works by scanning one of W&L’s historic buildings.

If you’re curious about some exciting new developments in computer technology, this is the program for you.