Museum of Science and Industry

NEW MSI EXHIBIT LETS GUESTS SEE THE FUTURE AND ENCOURAGES THEM TO CREATE IT

MSI welcomes permanent exhibit Fast Forward … Inventing the Future

CHICAGO—The Museum is looking to the future with the opening of permanent exhibit Fast Forward … Inventing the Future. This permanent, rotating exhibit, which opened to the public in September 2008, showcases cutting-edge technology and innovations developed by groundbreaking inventors and scientists from around the world. Within the exhibit, guests learn how ingenuity and creativity are being used to shape our future and advance our society in the areas of agriculture, transportation, entertainment, energy and much more.

Fast Forward challenges all of us to ask “What if?” What if you could repair your body at the cellular level to live forever? What if you could really replicate food like on Star Trek? What if robots were so lifelike you couldn’t distinguish them from real humans? What if a farmer could grow his crops in a crowded city? Seemingly impossible challenges can be overcome by beginning with this simple “What if?”question.

The Fast Forward interactive gallery features 12 innovators, selected by Museum exhibit staff, who are asking this question—and pushing the current boundaries of science and technology. Guests will discover what motivates these visionaries, understand their challenges, and experience and interact with their successes. As innovation speeds forward, so will the exhibit. The exhibit content and featured innovators will rotate to keep pace with the latest in scientific discovery and technological advancement.

The exhibit also features “young innovators”—young people beyond their years who show great promise, vision and motivation to change the world. The first young innovator profiled is a self-taught 20-year-old, William Kamkwamba, who as a teenager built a windmill out of scrap materials to provide electricity for his family. He now dreams of powering every village in his African nation of Malawi.

Guests can examine the work of these groundbreakers through video presentations, models and prototypes of actual new inventions. In the first iteration of the exhibit, they will:

• discover the advances in robotics that are creating robots that can think, reason and even learn from experience;
• learn about clothing that is engineered to communicate emotions over long distances and respond to the environment;
• try their hand at planting virtual crops in a vertical farm created for urban landscapes;
  reflect on the possibility of living for 1,000 years; and
• “play” an amazing new instrument in a matter of minutes.

Fast Forward demonstrates with a spark of inspiration, and hard work, the future of our world can be changed, and the seemingly impossible can become possible. The inspiring stories of these innovators will encourage Museum guests to dream big­—because anyone of us can produce extraordinary ideas and because we, as a collective society, are inventing the future.

Fast Forward … Inventing the Future is included with general admission to the Museum.

• General Release (PDF)
• Innovators and Innovations (PDF)

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