The Center for Plasma Science and Fusion at MIT offered an open house event for high school students on December 3, 2015 and seven students from Andover High School joined PreK-12 Science Program Coordinator Steve Sanborn for a fascinating day getting a closer look at the science and research being conducted at the Center.
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| Liam Moynihan, Ajay Ananthakrishnan, Blavant Singh, Rishi Srinavasan, Yuval Schecter, Thomas Galligani, and Oliver Nemec donned hard hats to get a closer look at the Tokamak. |
The program began with a 45 minute introduction to the science and issues related to nuclear fusion. During this session, students learned about why nuclear fusion has been such a difficult process to utilize as a source of energy for residential and commercial use despite many years of promises that it could be the answer as an alternative to non-renewable energy sources.
After the introductory presentation, participating students were divided into multiple tour groups to visit the network of facilities housed at MIT. Students had the opportunity to see how plasmas are confined, performed hands-on demonstrations with electromagnetism, and reviewed the progress of MIT's plasma experiments, including projects involving the Alcator C-MOD tokamak. At one stop on the tour, teams of students particiapted in a video game simulations showing how magnetism is used to contain plasmas with temperatures hotter than the sun.
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| Introductory session to nuclear fusion technology |
After the introductory presentation, participating students were divided into multiple tour groups to visit the network of facilities housed at MIT. Students had the opportunity to see how plasmas are confined, performed hands-on demonstrations with electromagnetism, and reviewed the progress of MIT's plasma experiments, including projects involving the Alcator C-MOD tokamak. At one stop on the tour, teams of students particiapted in a video game simulations showing how magnetism is used to contain plasmas with temperatures hotter than the sun.
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| Let the plasma touch the wall of the tokamak and the game is over |
On another stop, students were shown equipment used to perform tests on techniques on a smaller scale.
 The last stop before lunch and a presentation on electromagnetism was a tour of the tokamak control center along with the unit itself. Running this "magnetic bottle" to contain the plasma that is generated consumed extraordinary amounts of electricity, one of the reasons that fusion is not yet a cost-effective method for generating power.  Following a post-lunch series of demonstrations on electromagnetism and energy, the open house program concluded after a very interesting and informative day at MIT. To view a 3D interactive image of the inside of the tokamak, visit the following link: http://research.psfc.mit.edu/alcator/cmod-tour.html . |
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