Parties are pretty great, but how about a space party? On April 10th, the Colorado Springs Science Center (CSSC) hosted its third annual Yuri’s Space Party. Science lovers from around the community gathered for a gala-esque evening at the Century 21 Library near Chapel Hills, hoping to fundraise for the development of a science center in Colorado Springs.

Did you know that Colorado Springs is the only city of this population in the nation that doesn’t have a science center or museum? Probably not. But the goal of the committee aimed at developing CSSC is to change this.

Yuri’s Space Party was created to “raise excitement and awareness about creating an interactive, hands-on museum in downtown Colorado Springs that will be a place that creates active learning moments to promote science and technology understanding; a place to explore the wonders of the science that is all around us,” says DeeAnn Rothstein, Secretary and Co-Founder. The night also served as a fundraiser to continue their programming in the community while they work toward the bigger vision of an actual building.

I’ve had the pleasure to work previously with on the members of the committee through some separate jobs, who suggested I volunteer to demonstrate science-related activities for the night. I also managed to wrangle a few other Air Academy students into helping as well.

Approximately 10 to 15 demonstrations were scattered across the floor, ranging from “milk fireworks” to metronome synchronization to robots and acoustic resonance. I, along with fellow seniors and friends Michellie Thurman and Hannah Bohn, exhibited a vibrating string that created a visual representation of waves and frequency – a magnified guitar string, if you will. However, being high school seniors, there were a couple of visitors who were a little more well-versed than us.

“We were supposed to be teaching, but instead we started learning,” Michellie said. Hannah added, “Speaking with college graduates who have already studied these topics has really revealed the depth left to discover in our world.”

Science demonstrations weren’t the only perks of the night. The District 20 Rocky Mountain Robotics and Coronado “Cougars Gone Wired” Robotics teams also displayed their most recent robots for an hour of the night, both of which made it to the Colorado Regional Semi-Finals. A rather eccentric man dressed as Galileo (or perhaps Copernicus) had star-gazing telescopes set up out front of the library beginning at 8:00. In addition, there was food, a silent auction, a magic show, wine raffles, and two young girls walking around in astronaut suits – you might know them better as Grace Kendziorski and Elizabeth Bernatska.

The most exciting part of the night, though, was the announcement that the CSSC just received a catalyst donation from the local Edson Foundation of $100,000 that will help to accelerate the planning, development, and next steps.

Plenty of you out there are geeks and nerds at heart, so I encourage you to keep your fingers crossed for the speedy introduction of CSSC to our community.