From May 25th to 28th 2017, PONYS joined “Futuro Remoto”, the most anticipated Naples science festival organized by Città della Scienza (link http://www.cittadellascienza.it/). The event was hosted in Piazza del Plebiscito, the principal square of Naples. The focus topic of this year was “Connections”, a wide theme held in all its senses.
During the four days of the festival, PONYS presented Passione fisica (link http://ponys.fisica.unina.it/?p=1566), an activity designed as a journey through different fields of physics. The aim was to let scientifical interest araise in all the people visiting our exhibitions, by showing how complex physical phenomena can be appealing and accessible when they are made with simple experiments.
The event was designed as a scientific adventure journey, where the visitor received a customizable scientific passport and a quiz with questions about the topics discussed. Following the exhibitions and answering the questions the visitor could fill his/her Scientific Passport (link report PAS) with stamps, which marked his/her progress. Taking care of the main theme of Futuro Remoto, PONYS decided to connect with other research centers by involving them in their scientific adventure. With this idea the visitor, having the scientific passport, could go to visit other exhibitions and collect stamps from them. This idea has been a great success and involved hundreds of people.
Ranging from Electromagnetism and Optics to Geophysics and Particle Physics, most of the experiments was made of everyday materials, in order to both stimulate the audience with familiar objects and to make those experiments easily reproducible and interactive. This year acoustic experiments were introduced in order to show how to generate a sound wave. A special area was dedicated to interactive demonstrations about physics of football, basketball, dancing, diving and others.
Furthermore, PONYS realized three appointments of Physica in fabula (link report PIF) and a scientific speed dating (link report SD). The former was a funny and interesting laboratory for kids; the latter involved several scientists to answer public’s questions.
Also this year more than 100 volunteers among students, PhD, researchers and professors of the Physics Department of the University of Naples joined this PONYS experience!