Full house at Danish Science Festival

By Trine Søndergaard, trinesh@sdu.dk 

Again this year, the Danish Science Festival was well attended. Around 4,500 visitors dropped by on Saturday 29 April. More than 50 free activities enticed both children and adults to SDU, and the Science-related activities drew even more visitors than last year.

The morning's biggest event was the appearance of YouTube stars Robin and Samrita. The couple, who are also known as RobinSamse, were greeted by the audience as if they were headliners at a rock festival. Associate Professor Rolf Fagerberg from IMADA introduced the Computer Science study programme, then handed the stage over to the energetic YouTubers, who demonstrated programming and the computer game Minecraft to around 500 guests.

The Science Show attracted a full house of 500 guests to two performances, and many guests had to be turned away from the first show.

An outdoors carpentry workshop where guests could build insect hotels with biology students was so popular that the workshop had run out of building materials by 1 p.m. But by then, 70 people had managed to build hotels ready for occupation by the creeping and winged creatures found in gardens.

There was also great interest in the supercomputer ABACUS 2.0. Coordinator Wendy Alexandra Engelberts was faced with several sold-out guided tours. The same was the case for Biology's Bat Cave. They improvised an extra tour, which was also quickly booked up.

The Quantum Rascals offered a glimpse into the great riddles of the universe, and during the two lectures the classroom was packed with visitors interested in the sun, moon and mysteries of the universe.

The Molecule Construction Site occupied children and their parents throughout the day, and impressive molecule constructions were made from recycled materials. The slightly older children had fun solving the murder mystery that the pharmacy students had arranged, from police barriers to revealing chemical clues at the crime scene.

"It was a fantastic day. Everything went according to plan, and the day was completely in the spirit of the Danish Science Festival," says Outreach Coordinator Allan Haurballe Madsen, who coordinated the day and the many activities at Science:

"The Danish Science Festival is a day where we open the University to everyone, and where children and adults can see what our researchers and students are up to. It's important that particularly children come out here so that they can experience at a young age what SDU is all about, and of course we hope that they'll come back when they're older via our bridge-building initiative in high schools," explains Allan Haurballe Madsen and praises the students and researchers:

"We wouldn't be able to hold such a successful Danish Science Festival without the dedication of our students and researchers. They deserve a massive thank you because they always rise to the occasion and leave our visitors with a good impression of SDU and Science."

Photos: Michael Yde Katballe/SDU