{"id":496389,"date":"2026-10-15T00:52:10","date_gmt":"2026-10-15T00:52:10","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/496389\/"},"modified":"2026-10-15T00:52:10","modified_gmt":"2026-10-15T00:52:10","slug":"bay-area-science-festival-set-for-saturday-free-event-to-feature-games-robots","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/496389\/","title":{"rendered":"Bay Area Science Festival set for Saturday; free event to feature games, robots"},"content":{"rendered":"

It\u2019s mid-October. Time to rake leaves, buy Halloween candy and watch college football, right?<\/p>\n

Yes. But if you want your kid to get A\u2019s at school and maybe be inspired to become a scientist, doctor or engineer, there\u2019s an extra attraction this time of year: the Bay Area Science Festival.<\/p>\n

The event, now in its 13th year, is an annual, hands-on celebration of all-things science. Admission is free. It will be held from 11 a.m. to 4 p.m. Saturday at the UC San Francisco Mission Bay Campus, Koret Quad, in San Francisco.<\/p>\n

Billed as the largest free science celebration in Northern California, the festival is open to anyone, with a particular focus on families and kids. Last year, roughly 10,000 people attended.<\/p>\n

\u201cThis is one of the largest science festivals in the country,\u201d said Katherine Nielsen, co-founder of the festival. \u201cThere are a lot of opportunities to bring people from all over the Bay Area to highlight the science they are doing as well as the science here at UCSF. There really is something for all ages.\u201d<\/p>\n

For more information, go to www.bayareasciencefestival.org<\/a><\/p>\n

Dozens of major institutions, including the Lawrence Hall of Science, the Northern California Geological Society, UC Berkeley, the California Academy of Sciences, the Marine Mammal Center, the Tech Interactive museum, Chabot Space & Science Center, the California Coastal Commission, Gladstone Institutes, Aquarium of the Bay, USGS, the Oakland Zoo and others have hosted booths and run exhibits at the festival over the years.<\/p>\n

This year, 125 events, demonstrations and other attractions include a robot zoo, air rockets, live leopard sharks, and STEM magic shows.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe scientists and researchers who come here are passionate about what they do,\u201d Nielson said. \u201cWhether it\u2019s in science, technology, engineering or health.\u201d<\/p>\n

\"KidsKids learn about static electricity at the 2019 Bay Area Science Festival, at Oracle Park in San Francisco. (Photo: Bay Area Science Festival)\u00a0<\/p>\n

One wrinkle this year. The UCSF campus is one block from the Chase Center, home to the Golden State Warriors and Golden State Valkyries. On Saturday at 12:30 pm, the Valkyries will play in the first game of the WNBA Championship at Chase Center, hosting the Atlanta Dream.<\/p>\n

Parking will be tight in some places, but the garages at UCSF will be reserved for festival-goers, Nielson said.<\/p>\n

The event began in 2011. Over the years, it has been held over multiple days in various locations around the Bay Area, usually with a big final day at Oracle Park, home of the San Francisco Giants. When the COVID pandemic hit, it went virtual in 2020 and was cancelled in 2021. It came back in 2022 but wasn\u2019t held in 2023 or 2024.<\/p>\n

Nielsen said during those years the 8-person team at UCSF that organizes and runs the event every year moved offices from the UCSF Parnassus Campus in San Francisco\u2019s Inner Sunset neighborhood to the Mission Bay location. Also at that time, there was some staff turnover.<\/p>\n

The UCSF Mission Bay campus is a 57-acre life sciences hub along 16th Street and 3rd Street that includes medical centers, research laboratories and student housing.<\/p>\n

Holding the science festival at Mission Bay was a success last year, she said. And holding the festival, which is sponsored by UCSF, at a UCSF campus is more cost-effective than renting out the entire baseball stadium. At the stadium, the festival also had to work around the Giants\u2019 schedule, delaying until November when the possibility of playoff games had passed, but the chances of rainy weather are higher.<\/p>\n

\u201cLast year was an experiment, but we had really positive feedback,\u201d Nielson said. \u201cHolding it at UCSF, people get to come to a place where science is happening every day. There are more stages, and people can tour the labs. It just makes sense. And it\u2019s a beautiful campus.\u201d<\/p>\n

\"KidsKids look on Alana Ball, 12, of Concord, holding a California king snake brought by Mount Diablo Interpretive Association during the Bay Area Science Festival at Cal State East Bay-Concord in Concord, Calif., on Saturday, Oct. 27, 2018. The event featured lectures, games and several activities for kids interested in science. (Ray Chavez\/Bay Area News Group)\u00a0Ray Chavez\/Bay Area News Group<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"It\u2019s mid-October. Time to rake leaves, buy Halloween candy and watch college football, right? Yes. But if you…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":496390,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[30],"tags":[15250,1103,2311,101,103,102,104,106,105,9217],"class_list":["post-496389","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-san-francisco","tag-bay-area-science-festival","tag-mission-bay","tag-museums","tag-san-francisco","tag-san-francisco-headlines","tag-san-francisco-news","tag-sf","tag-sf-headlines","tag-sf-news","tag-ucsf"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/496389","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=496389"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/496389\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/496390"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=496389"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=496389"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=496389"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}