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ASU Polytechnic campus hosts Night of the Open Door Feb. 20


ASU Night of the Open Door
February 16, 2015

Bet you have never seen seven-foot musical Tesla coils play music with 23 feet of pure plasma. Or built and raced a hovercraft.

Maybe learning how to fly a plane is on your bucket list, or how to transform an iconic Chevrolet Camaro into a hybrid-electric vehicle.

All of this, and much more, will be going down at Arizona State University’s Polytechnic campus Friday, Feb. 20, as part of Night of the Open Door. It is one of four signature events created by ASU as part of the Arizona SciTech Festival, a statewide celebration of science, technology, engineering, art and math.

Open Door @ Poly is the largest open house of the year. It takes place from 5 to 8:30 p.m. and has something for all ages. Thousands of visitors are expected to visit ASU’s East Valley campus to learn about innovations and discoveries, take a sneak peek into state-of-the-art labs, and play some fun and challenging games.

Dozens of hands-on activities will take place for children. The young at heart can interact and apply triage to victims in a mass casualty virtual simulation or test their skills at trading stocks. Families can visit the Make Media Lab, where they can pose in front of a green screen and see video of themselves in fun, exotic locales.

One of the highlights of the night will be the Musical Tesla by Plasma Phonic.

Plasma Phonic is a musical performance group that performs with two seven-foot-tall musical Tesla coils and a fully robotic drum set. A Tesla coil is an electrical resonant transformer circuit invented by Nikola Tesla around 1891. It is used to produce high-voltage, low-current, high frequency alternating-current electricity.

Technical director for Plasma Phonic is Eric Goodchild, who is getting his bachelor’s degree in engineering with a concentration in electrical systems at the Polytechnic School, one of the Ira A. Fulton Schools of Engineering.

The Polytechnic campus is located at 7001 E. Williams Field Rd., Mesa, Arizona. The event and parking is free. The public is asked to pre-register – all children will get a free gift at an information booth (if no children are in the party, the registrant may have the gift instead) until supplies last. Register at https://opendoor.asu.edu/registration-form

For more information on Night of the Open Door at the Polytechnic campus, visit https://opendoor.asu.edu/polytechnic.