ASU Arizona State University Night of Open Door Powered by STEAM

Searching for new ideas and unique experiences with the family in 2017? Does your New Year’s resolution include medieval knights and chain mail, international culture, new-age cars, space exploration or Teotihuacan pyramids? What about discovering the newest career fields or meeting the brainiacs heading labs at the No. 1 most innovative university in the country?

Arizona State University hosts the Night of the Open Door on its five campuses across metro Phoenix. Each offers adults and children the opportunity to “nerd out” and celebrate the power of STEAM (science, technology, engineering, arts and math) with more than 360 hands-on experiences, tours, performances, creative activities, demos, games and design challenges.

• Feb. 3 — Downtown Phoenix campus, 4–9 p.m.
• Feb. 11 — West campus, 4–9 p.m.
• Feb. 17 — Polytechnic campus, 4–9 p.m.
• Feb. 18 — Thunderbird campus, 4–8 p.m.
• Feb. 25 — Tempe campus, 3–9 p.m.

Get free tickets in advance online and enter to win a gift package. Tickets also function as an express pass to collect the free glow wand and event programs at the registration booths once on campus.

With so many activities to consider, Night of the Open Door also offers an app through Devils on Campus (Android or iOS) to help visitors choose activities in advance and navigate each campus. Follow us on Twitter and Facebook for highlights of upcoming events.

In its sixth year, Night of the Open Door is a top signature event of the Arizona SciTech Festival. Each campus offers performances and activities tailored to its own unique character. For example, chart an evening at Downtown Phoenix to experience cooking and health demonstrations, Native painting activities and community arts exhibits. Come tour PBS studios, meet ASU Public Service Academy students or compete in sustainability, law and health learning games. Kids can even get their junior reporter press badge working with veteran journalists and vintage typewriters.

Exploration of West campus gets visitors thinking about black widow spiders, forensics and the neuroscience of chocolate. Try to beat a lie detector test, build electronic circuits or experience ASU students’ research in cancer, aging and drug development. There’s Minecraft, Angry Birds, art shows, design, dance and much more.

At ASU Polytechnic and Thunderbird campuses, imaginations can take flight, literally. The Polytechnic campus is home to robotics and STEAM machines, the Superstition Review Literary Magazine, Sun Devil Racing Development and a professional flight simulator. The ASU Thunderbird School of Global Management adds an international flair with arts and culture from around the world, including movies, sports, dance, festivals and food, from Peru to the Middle East and China.

ASU’s Night of the Open Door winds up on Feb. 25, with more than 150 hands-on arts and sciences activities, lab tours and demos on the Tempe campus, including the ASU Sustainability Solutions Festival (#Sustival) and, new this year, the futuristic arts exposition “Emerge.”

Emerge events bring to life how our creations are changing what it means to be human, exploring the theme of “Frankenstein” in celebration of the upcoming 200th anniversary of Mary Shelley’s classic novel. In addition to Victor Frankenstein’s Workshop for kids, Emerge events for adults are hosted at ASU’s University Club and include artists, virtual reality experiences, neurocomics and immersive environments. Consider the future with “Tomorrow’s Monster,” a lab space designed for the year 2047 that features beautifully crafted, customized organs, enhancements and spare body parts. What are the implications of commodification for the future of medicine, artificial intelligence, robotics and what constitutes life itself?

Whether your interests are in language lessons, math or cybersecurity, ancient bones, meteorites or live snakes, Night of the Open Door events have something for everyone, fueled by more than 2,000 undergraduates, graduate students, staff and superstar-faculty volunteers from 150 academic groups.

“I’m impressed by the energy that our volunteers pour into Night of the Open Door each year,” said Darci Nagy, ASU special events manager. “It’s grassroots. Their enthusiasm makes visitors’ discoveries in sustainability, medicine, journalism, language, sciences and engineering more personal and exciting.”

“Coming to ASU for Night of the Open Door, touring the campuses and meeting the world-class people who teach and do research gives people of all ages and from all walks of life the chance to experience and imagine the future they want,” said ASU staffer Margaret Coulombe.