Engineering Expo was held at my university a couple of weeks ago. Its an event where schools and families travel from afar to see just how awesome engineering actually is. Really, its like a college level science fair, including tons of robots, cars, Tesla coils and other engineered eye candy. But what does the computer scientist have to offer in this environment? Hm?

How about, Firefox!

Open Art Day

We had an open source day, but minus the source and plus the art:

This was an attempt to teach the ways of open source through art and a beloved open source project, Firefox.

Hundreds of kids, chaperons, and family members came through our open art exhibit. Almost all of them knew about Firefox, but almost none of them knew it was open source (or what open source was.)

These visitors left our exhibit with, at the very least, a notion of open source where there had been none before, and some sweet Firefox swag. ;)
- Open Art Project

In the absence of robots, I wanted to present something that could capture the attention of the kids and be accessible to them, but also teach something valuable. The idea for them to collaborate on art rather than source code formed from this. Yes, the image above was drawn by our visitors, along with five other posters filled with signatures and drawings.

Marker on Paper

I gave each group of visitors a brief explanation of Firefox and how, through open source, it was made possible. We then had the kids grab markers to help us fill in our posters. Hundreds of visitors signed names, doodled, and contributed.

Some kids were intimidated by the Firefox poster at first. They didn't want to blemish such a well established code ba- err, image. It's a feeling I'm familiar with... but Christine, the initial artist, reassured them, "It's just marker on paper - that's all it is." They were comforted by this notion, as evident by the finished poster.

Household Name

As I surveyed each group, it was clear that very few students knew of open source, though most of them knew or had used Firefox - more so then the older family members and chaperons. A couple of high school students even admitted to knowing about Linux! Those poor souls...

What is clear to me though, is that Firefox has done what no other open source project has really done before. It has boldly gone into the realm of household name-age. Whether aware or oblivious, openness is being injected into the fleshy forearm of society, thanks to a little fox.

Overall, the experience of "open art day" was great, but the message delivered, I think, even greater.

I'd like to thank all the ACM volunteers who helped out and Mozilla for the swag packs! You can view some of the festivities of the day here.