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  "path": "/ieees-global-museum-engineering-history",
  "publishedAt": "2026-07-03T18:00:02.000Z",
  "site": "https://spectrum.ieee.org",
  "tags": [
    "Ieee-news",
    "Ieee-history",
    "Ieee-global-museums",
    "Microchips",
    "Radio",
    "IEEE History Center",
    "IEEE Global Museum",
    "Daniel Jon Mitchell",
    "IEEE Honors Ceremony",
    "Microchips That Shook the World",
    "IEEE Spectrum",
    "Chip Hall of Fame",
    "Commodore 64",
    "Mike Molnar",
    "superheterodyne radio",
    "Edwin Howard Armstrong,",
    "IEEE Medal of Honor",
    "Unseen Signals: E. Howard Armstrong’s Radio Revolution",
    "Audion",
    "Motorola",
    "National Museum of Industrial History",
    "Pavek Museum",
    "Museum of Innovation and Science",
    "IEEE Vehicular Technology Society",
    "Vehicular Technology Conference",
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    "IEEE Dielectrics and Electrical Insulation Society",
    "Powering Up",
    "General Electric",
    "Westinghouse",
    "1939 World’s Fair",
    "Ronald Reagan",
    "Kodak KAF-1300",
    "Stephen Cass",
    "Nvidia",
    "NV20 chip",
    "IEEE Electronic Components and Technology Conference",
    "Computer History Museum",
    "University of Waterloo",
    "donations to the IEEE Foundation"
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  "textContent": "\n\n\n\nMany IEEE members who collect historical engineering artifacts often offer them to the IEEE History and Heritage group, which includes the IEEE History Center, to display. To bring these artifacts to the public, the group created the IEEE Global Museum, which curates traveling exhibits for display at conferences and in libraries, universities, and other venues.\n\nThe program educates people about how technological progress has unfolded over generations, and how engineers and researchers build on past achievements to benefit humanity.\n\nCurating the exhibits has been rewarding, says Daniel Jon Mitchell, director of the group’s heritage programs.\n\n“People tell me that they are genuinely moved by having history and artifacts explained to them in an accessible, intelligible way,” Mitchell says. “When people are moved and emotionally affected by what you’re doing, they’re going to remember that. And I think that’s part of the power of what we’re doing.”\n\nThe most recent traveling exhibit was on display in April in New York City during the IEEE Honors Ceremony, which celebrates engineering pioneers who have developed technologies that changed how people connect with the world. Attendees explored the Microchips That Shook the World exhibit, which drew inspiration from IEEE Spectrum’s Chip Hall of Fame. The exhibit conveys the roles integrated circuits play in fields such as signal processing, audio engineering, and telecommunications. The Commodore 64, one of the artifacts on display, stirred up treasured childhood memories for guests who had used the home computer.\n\nOther exhibits have focused on early radio inventions and power and communications technologies.\n\nThe Global Museum works with IEEE societies to mark their anniversaries by interpreting and displaying pertinent items.\n\n## A tribute to radio pioneer Edwin Howard Armstrong\n\nThe idea of a traveling museum came to fruition in 2024 after Alexander Magoun, IEEE’s outreach historian, connected with Mike Molnar. The IEEE associate member owns one of six superheterodyne radio prototypes developed by Edwin Howard Armstrong, who probably is best known for inventing the FM radio system. Armstrong received the first IEEE Medal of Honor in 1917.\n\nThe radio converts incoming frequencies into a fixed, lower intermediate one using a local oscillator and a frequency mixer. The technology paved the way for modern electronic communications devices. The prototype became the focal point of the Global Museum’s flagship Unseen Signals: E. Howard Armstrong’s Radio Revolution exhibit, which celebrates the inventor’s life and his impact on the broadcasting industry and wireless communications.\n\n“The radio prototype is one of the most incredible pieces that we could put on display,” Mitchell says. He and Magoun sourced other artifacts including an Audion used in Armstrong’s experiments on wireless signal amplification; a selection of consumer products that attempted to cash in on radio’s popularity, including a flour sifter and laxatives; and a Motorola Walkie-Talkie from the Korean War. They were from museums or private collectors along the East Coast of the United States.\n\n“Aside from [Guglielmo] Marconi, Armstrong is the most significant contributor to the history of radio,” Mitchell says. “The exhibit is not only a biography but also a story of the cultural and political implications his work had.”\n\nVisitors can play 15 short clips of past radio broadcasts covering politics, religion, sports, or another topic.\n\nThe Armstrong exhibit was unveiled in 2024 at the National Museum of Industrial History in Bethlehem, Pa.\n\nThe 93-square-meter exhibit is still traveling around the United States. It is on display until 15 August at the Pavek Museum, in St. Louis Park, Minn.\n\nFrom 21 November until 9 May 2027, it is scheduled to be at the Museum of Innovation and Science in Schenectady, N.Y. Entry to the museum is free for IEEE members with a digital membership card.\n\n## Collaborating with IEEE societies\n\nThe IEEE History and Heritage group collaborates with IEEE societies to create exhibits for special events. In 2024 Mitchell curated an exhibit to celebrate the 75th anniversary of the IEEE Vehicular Technology Society and its 100th Vehicular Technology Conference. The Our Mobile World exhibit was launched at the conference, held in October in Washington, D.C.\n\n“The society’s leadership helped me focus attention on key developments that meant a lot to its members,” Mitchell says.\n\n“The IEEE Global Museum wants to present exhibits that connect with its audiences, whether these are IEEE members or the public,” he says. “Just knowing what was important historically doesn’t mean that this will resonate, so I really appreciated the insight.”\n\nThe exhibit’s artifacts included a Motorola DynaTac “brick” cellphone, a CB radio from the 1980s, and one of the earliest handheld GPS receivers. Visitors played an interactive game to test their knowledge spanning a century of wireless technology, motor vehicles, and mobile communication inventions.\n\nMitchell worked this year with the IEEE Dielectrics and Electrical Insulation Society to launch a virtual exhibit, Powering Up, which is available on the Global Museum website. It provides an overview of high-voltage power engineering, and it highlights the roles that manufacturers General Electric and Westinghouse played in making long-distance, high-voltage transmission of electrical power possible. Videos and photos of impulse generators and tests are featured in the exhibit.\n\nNvidia CEO and cofounder Jensen Huang, who received the 2026 IEEE Medal of Honor, exploring the Microchips That Shook the World exhibit.IEEE Conferences, Events & Experiences\n\nOne photo shows lightning arcing between high-voltage generators. Others show the impulse generators used at the 1939 World’s Fair in New York City, demonstrations of artificial lightning, and U.S. President Ronald Reagan visiting GE’s high-voltage laboratory in Pittsfield, Mass.\n\n## The history of microchips\n\nThe Unseen Signals exhibit was created for large venues, but the Microchips That Shook the World exhibit was designed to be displayed in different spaces, Mitchell says. Artifacts are premounted to ensure easy setup, and they’re encased in glass because many are rare.\n\nMicrochips are crucial for signal processing, audio engineering, and telecommunications, making them a point of interest despite their small size, Mitchell says. One rare artifact on display is the Kodak KAF-1300 image sensor. Invented in 1986, it was used in one of the earliest digital cameras made for photojournalists.\n\nThe KAF-1300’s image sensor chip “is credited with bringing digital cameras out of the laboratory,” Mitchell says. “Only around 500 were produced.”\n\nVisitors can understand how transistors work, he says, by pressing buttons to turn them on and off.\n\n“There are billions of transistors in modern microchips,” he notes, “and you can combine them in a way that performs logical functions.”\n\nUnseen Signals, one of two identical exhibits, was curated by Mitchell and Stephen Cass, __IEEE Spectrum__ ’s special projects editor, with help from several __Spectrum__ colleagues. Together, they served as on-site docents for guests at the IEEE Honors Ceremony.\n\nThe display also featured a preview of IEEE’s immersive “Inside the Microchip” video project, which delves beneath the silicon surface of Nvidia’s NV20 chip, using forensic photography and computer-generated renderings. The video, to be released this year, aims to teach middle school students about the microchips that are inside their gaming devices.\n\nThe exhibit was on display at the IEEE Electronic Components and Technology Conference, held in May in Orlando, Fla. Later this year, members will be able to visit it at the Computer History Museum in Mountain View, Calif., and the University of Waterloo, in Ontario, Canada.\n\nThe IEEE Global Museum is made possible thanks to donations to the IEEE Foundation.",
  "title": "IEEE’s Global Museum Brings Engineering History to You"
}