Trieste has a very high concentration of research centres. This results in various big scientific events,
which gather people from the institutes and university to present their activity to the general
public. Among these events there are the Mini Maker Faire and the Science Picnic, which in 2016
took place consecutively at the International Centre for Theoretical Physics, in which we took part
with our own stand. There, we presented to the public facts about space science and the Solar
System. We had 3D-printed models of comet 67P/Churyumov-Gerasimenko and of the ESA Rosetta
probe, paper models of the Rosetta probe to give out to kids, posters on the Solar System and a
binocular, which projected on a cardboard the Sun and a solar spot.
Besides our stand, we had many time-slots to present our talks on the physics of music (“Sounds
right? Sounds good!”), the ESA Rosetta mission, the measurement of the cosmic microwave
background, and the observation of the sky in the infrared spectral range from the Antartic and
from space. In more detail, the measurement of the CMB was discussed with the aid of guitar, to
present it in analogy to the description of waves on a string. The talk on the observation of the
infrared sky was, instead, in the form of a double talk with two speakers, each arguing in favour of
his preferred kind of location.
The number of people reached in these events is large, since these attract people both from the city
and from the whole Friuli-Venezia Giulia region. The total number of visitors to the Mini Maker Faire
has been estimated by the organizers to be 18000. Given its success, we will participate also in the
2017 edition.
