Nov 05, 2010 (Friday) - Nov 06, 2010 (Saturday)

Symposium: "Food for Tomorrow"

Presented in collaboration with the Smithsonian’s Lemelson Center for the Study of Invention and Innovation and the National Museum of American History Food and Wine Group

Join us for this year’s annual New Perspectives on Invention and Innovation symposium. In an array of activities that explores the inventions and innovations that affect “Food for Tomorrow,” the symposium brings together inventors, historians, farmers, scientists--and you--in conversations and demonstrations about the many ways that invention is part of our daily menu.

At the National Museum of American History.

More information ...

An employee pushes a microwave radar dish down a Rad Lab corridor.   MIT Museum

Nov 06, 2009 (Friday) - Dec 31, 2010 (Friday)

Showcase exhibition: Hot Spots of Invention

Invention happens everywhere. But sometimes a “hot spot” of invention takes shape when the right mix of creative people, resources, and inspiring surroundings come together. In the 1930s, a hot spot began to form among the industrial labs and universities of New England. As World War II neared, the hot spot matured at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. The campus bustled with a growing network of inventive people and new research laboratories.

The Hot Spots of Invention showcase exhibition features the stories of three of the many war-era labs at MIT: Charles Stark Draper’s instruments lab, the Radiation Laboratory, and Harold Edgerton’s strobe lab. Together, they helped transform Cambridge into a dynamic place of invention.

Learn more about the MIT hot spot.

First floor west.

One of Lemelson's toy inventions.   Courtesy the Lemelson Foundation

Dec 01, 2008 (Monday) - Dec 31, 2010 (Friday)

Showcase exhibition: Jerome Lemelson--Toying with Invention

Jerome Lemelson earned more than 600 patents, and about 70 of them describe toys—inflatable toys, jumping toys, toys with propellers, toys that run on tracks, target games, dolls, and more. In fact, Lemelson’s first patent, issued in 1953, was for a new kind of propeller beanie. The objects in this case are examples of Lemelson’s toy ideas and show some of the stages in inventing a new plaything.

Lemelson Center foyer, third floor west.

Read more about Lemelson's toy inventions.