(Jon Jaehnig/For the Daily Mining Gazette) After a year-long break, Science Saturday returned to the Carnegie Museum last weekend. MTU’s Mind Trekkers set up over a half-dozen interactive demonstrations in the lower floor of the museum for the education and entertainment of area youngsters.

HOUGHTON — Science Saturday returned to the Carnegie Museum of the Keweenaw last week. The once twice-yearly event didn’t materialize last year but came together on Saturday afternoon when Michigan Technological University’s Mind Trekkers brought over a half-dozen mini-science experiments to the lower floor of the museum.

“As far as demos that we have out here, most of them are tried-and-true,” said Mind Trekkers Vice President of Membership Drew Hull. “For these local events, we like to focus on our interactive demos that kids can do with us.”

Mind Trekkers is based at MTU but tours all over the country. Many of their on-the-road demonstrations are meant to be viewed by a large crowd rather than engaged with one-on-one like the demos that they brought to the Carnegie.

“I really like ‘The Grape Crusher’ because it’s one of the only demos out right now that has a problem that the child needs to solve,” said Hull.

In ‘The Grape Crusher,’ children use provided tools to create an apparatus to prevent a grape from being crushed under a weight. Hull wasn’t the only one who cited the demo as his favorite.

“If you put cylinders around a grape it won’t get squashed,” said Ezra, an event attendee and local youth. “Cylinders are very strong shapes.”

Ezra came to the event with his parents, both teachers at Hancock schools who found out about the event through the schools.

“This is our first time coming to the event,” said father and math teacher Brian Irizarri. “We really like the calm and relaxed environment. It’s not too full.”

While as many as one hundred children have attended the event in the past having an open-house format all afternoon means that there are never too many children at any one time, museum Director Elise Nelson explained in an earlier interview.

“From the sounds of it (attendance) has been pretty steady,” said Nelson. “Someone came right away at noon and a number of people have made their way up here throughout the day.”

The event is rewarding for children and parents, as well as for the Mind Trekkers volunteers that help the children navigate the demos, according to Mind Trekkers Vice President of Science Joe Muhle.

“Kids come up and we tell them, ‘We’re going to put a wooden skewer through a balloon without popping it,’ and they don’t believe It,” said Muhle. “They think, ‘that’s impossible,’ and there’s a ‘woah’ moment that they have when you show them that you can do it with science.”

While no time has been set up yet, both Nelson and the Mind Trekkers said that they hope to see the event return in the coming months.