This year’s event is run under the theme “Machines and Us” and is divided into seven zones, including civilisation, the future, DIY and epic experiments.
Visitors have the opportunity to see a mechanical dinosaur, exoskeleton and R2-D2, among others.
Dorota Truszczak, head of Polish Radio’s Culture and Education section, said, “You will be able to make an exceptionally complicated robot, a droid, which we know only from Star Wars.”
Polish scientist Łukasz A. Turski, professor of theoretical physics at the Center for Theoretical Physics at the Polish Academy of Sciences and chairman of the Copernicus Science Centre Programme Board, said, “Throughout centuries of development, we have learned how to create, use and maintain machines, convinced that we will not be able to survive without them. We will show this to the visitors of the 23rd Science Picnic.”
Turski said, “Someone living in an area where obsidian was available, who decided to use it as a blade, opened the development path leading to today’s homes with photovoltaic glass walls.”
He added, “Without primitive levers, wedges, as well as a wheel and axle – simple machines that we learn about in physics classes at school – the creation of the Hanging Gardens of Babylon or the Sphinx in Egypt would be impossible. In fact, people would be unable to erect the skyscrapers with their absurd height and splendour in today's oil-rich Emirates.”
About 200 institutions from Poland and across the world participate in the Science Picnic each year. Scientific institutions, universities, research institutes, museums and cultural institutions, foundations connected with education and scientific circles present their achievements and reveal the backstage of their everyday work.
Various scientific fields are represented at the picnic, including natural and social sciences and the humanities. The event provides a wealth of shows, experiences and presentations, about a thousand every year.
(aba)
Source: IAR