Organized by the Pacific Science Center and timed to coincide with the Seattle Center’s Next 50 celebration, the first-annual Seattle Science Festival features a galaxy of family-friendly festivities.

Science Expo Day (6/2) kicks things off with a big bang. Taking place across the Seattle Center grounds, this free event features more than 150 happenings: exhibits, demos, hands-on experiments, games and live performances by science-loving musicians and performance troupes.

Happening throughout June, the Science Luminaries Series offers a series of lectures on different themes from hackers, evolutionary scientists, rocket scientists and gaming gurus. No joke, the lecture series features the king of science himself: Stephen Hawking. The world’s most famous physicist will join renowned palaeontologist Dr. Jack Horner and biologist Dr. Leroy Hood to discuss evolution at the Paramount Theater (June 16, 8 p.m. Ticket prices vary). 

Festival Week (6/3–6/10) includes a huge range of science-centric activities across the city, including the Seattle Mini Maker Faire (6/2–6/3), where makers of robots, tools, games and weird stuff you never imagined gather and show off their inventions; Physics Made Alive (6/4), during which the University of Washington’s Department of Physics will demo fascinating items, including a monkey gun, a rocket wagon, an astro-blaster, the 55-gallon-drum crusher, antigravity magnets and an artificial rainbow; “Better Science Through Chocolate” tours at Theo Chocolate (6/4–6/5); and the Seattle middle school science fair (6/7), during which local students reveal their brave new ideas at the Museum of Flight.

Times, prices and locations vary. seattlesciencefestival.org 

This article has been edited since its original publication.