Day 3
Two more workshops and a trip across the stars!
On the morning of the third day, we have attended two worshops. Firstly, the Polish workshop and then, the Portugese workshop.
P O L I S H W O R K S H O P
The whole workshop revolved around different programs to test different properties of electricity and electronics. It was divided in 3 parts. We used many sensor, mainly analog sensors (return a voltage proportionnal to a physical quantity).
Vegetables keyboard
The first part of the workshop was to put wires into fruits (one wire for each fruit) and connect them to a touch sensor. When the fruit is touched, electricity can flow through the circuit (from the wire, through the fruit and our body to the ground), and the sensor notifies the program which then prints which fruit is touched. It works because the fruits contains plenty of water, which makes them really good conductive materials, allowing the electricity to flow through it.
Stress detector
The second part was about showing the resistance of ones skin to detect stress. The idea is that the more stressed we are, the more sweat is on our skin, and the less resistant it is. So we made a circuit by puting two fingers into a sort of glove linked to a sensor. It was interesting to see variations of values when we lie or when we tell the truth, because when we are lying, our stress increases. Obviously, not everyone has the same tension and so we have to adapt to each person.
Rainbow lighting
Finally, we connected a program to RGB light and the colors changed to make a rainbow. The LEDs of the rainbow were disposed in circle of leds or in the tape. We have tested a circle with 8 leds, 16 leds and the long tape.
P O R T U G E S E W O R K S H O P
The workshop was about kinetic energy and the link between the magnetic potential energy and the kinetic energy.
MEASUREMENT OF THE EARTH MAGNETIC FIELD
The first experiment was to try to measure indirectly the intensity of Earth magnetic field. For that, we created an electromagnet by rolling a copper wire around an empty bottle. We then plaed a compass inside of it to see the variation of magnetic field. The idea was to manage to make the generated magnetic field as intense as the Earth magnetic field, and to use the compass to make sure of it.
Magnetic cannon
The second experiment, was very impressive. They presented an experiment with metal marbles and magnets that showed us the relationship between kinetic energy and potential energy. We had an iron gutter where a series of balls and a magnet were placed. The basic idea is that, when throwing a metal marble into the magnet, a lot of energy is realised (from negative magnetic potential energy), all this energy can't be held by the system, so it has to release it, as kinetic energy. Which is why a marble is thrown away with a lot of speed (kinetic energy).
These explications and experiences was very interesting and we learnt a lot of thing ! The video is an experience that we have done to understand the laws of physics.
Eddy currents
And for the five last minutes, they presented us what we call Eddy currents, which slows down a magnet sliding on non-magnetic surface.
ESO Garching
After lunch, we all together took the S-Bahn (a train surrounding Munich) for a little hour, heading towards ESO Garching!
ESO (European Southern Observatory) Garching is a science research center on plasma physics and astrophysics founded by the partnership of numerous European countries.
We visited the part dedicated to the public and had a show in the planetarium. A retired astrophysicist started by showing us some major constellations on the giant curved screen, explaining facts about stargazing in general, for the first half-hour. We later saw a little movie made by ESO explaining how this collaboration allowed Europe to create cutting-edge technology, and giving some preview of the different telescopes owned and invented by ESO. The telescopes are mostly based in Chili, where the weather and altitude conditions are some of the best on earth. After the presentation, we had some time left to visit the rest of the museum before the closure. We mostly saw science facts on different astral objects, news about recent research, interactive animations and learning games. It was really interesting and quite thrilling to visit a real research center and to learn about the technology of very large telescopes.
We got back to Fürstenfeldbruck for the evening and ate at Matha Pizzarei. It was the the time to go back to the hotel to prepare the next day and sleep.