The annual Cambridge Science Festival was held this year from Sept 23 – 29, with the main event being the Science Carnival on Sunday, where vendors and educators hosted displays and booths outside the MIT Museum. The TESS@MIT team brought our new traveling planet transit demonstration as well as a number of activities, handouts, and posters for the children. Estimates from last year suggested around 18000 people attended the festival, and this year seemed even busier than last. The TESS volunteers spent the day teaching children and adults about the methods used to detect planets around distant stars, engaging the children with arts and crafts, and handing out informational materials. In addition to the transit demonstration, children were encouraged to design their own planet systems that might exist around the many stars TESS is observing, as well as shown illustrations of the variety of planet systems discovered by TESS and how they differ from our own solar system.
