If you want to count the number of events at tomorrow’s Cal Day, go ahead. After Berkeleyside counted the 88 events that start at 10 a.m., we gave up. Which is another way of saying that if you can’t find something that interests you at the campus-wide open house tomorrow, you must lead a very dull life.
Remember the video of the laundry-folding robot that went viral on YouTube last year? You’ll want to trot over to the Robot Learning Lab at Sutardja Dai Hall at 10 a.m. (expect a crowd: 615,000 people have watched the video). Don’t care for fastidious robots? How about the speed-language lessons in Dwinelle Hall at 1 p.m. — Berkeley professors give you a sequence of 30-minute lessons in Chichewa, Swahili, Wolof and Zulu.
You get the idea. There is also some more traditional academic fare, such as panel discussions on the revolutions in Egypt, Tunisia and Libya, a lecture on the burgeoning field of computational mathematics and a look at whether Americans still have the capacity to work together to solve public policy issues.
There are also a number of events marking this year’s 50th anniversary of the Peace Corps, including a celebration where Peace Corps Deputy Director Carrie Hessler-Radelet will present the university with a plaque honoring its distinction as the institution that has produced more Corps volunteers than any other.
A Cal Day concert ends the day at 4 p.m. in Memorial Glade, featuring The Dodos, a San Francisco-based indie folk group (the Wikipedia entry also classifies the group as “psych folk and Baroque pop”).
The university expects over 40,000 participants for Cal Day, which has been an annual event since 1995. The calendar of events helpfully has a bear symbol (blue, not golden) next to events that will interest children. UCBerkeleyEvent will be tweeting throughout the day with hour-by-hour recommendations.
