“Zukunftstag” 2021 at the Department of Physics at ETH Zurich
- D-PHYS
- Physics
- D-PHYS
The “Nationale Zukunftstag” on 11 November is an important event at ETH Zurich. It offers many children the opportunity to get to know ETH Zurich from the inside. 17 different programmes were offered by various ETH units, some of which would have probably been of interest to adults, too.
For example, at this year's event, children were able to gain insights into how games are programmed, how muscles work together or, at the Department of Physics, what polymechanic, electronics technician, design engineer and physics laboratory assistant apprentices learn here. Ten girls and ten boys visited the Department of Physics – the programme was fully booked. After check-in at 9 a.m., they were officially welcomed and then taken on an exciting tour through the workshops and teaching labs, where hands-on stations in the construction, teaching workshop, electronics teaching lab, assembly and testing with the physics lab assistants, demonstration of physics experiments – and of course, had the opportunity to experiment themselves.
Deformed chocolate foam kiss
On this day, the children were out without their parents. Instead, they were accompanied by Myriam Leisi from the Study Secretariat and Marcel Huwyler, a fourth-year physics lab technician apprentice. Some children didn't know anyone, others were together with their siblings. As soon as they arrived, the children gathered around the “chocolate foam kiss” experiment. Nico Schlüssel, a third-year physics lab technician apprentice, started the experiment by removing the air from the sweet in a glass chamber. In a vacuum, the chocolate foam kiss popped up and deformed. Nico was sure to get a big “wow”. “What will happen when the chocolate foam kiss gets air again?” he asked the group, which contributed its ideas enthusiastically. Some of the children were right: Wen adding air, the foam surprisingly contracted until the chocolate layer almost was almost closed again.
Hands-on stations
Next, everyone was encouraged to experiment on their own. Oskar and his sister Amelia tried to blow out a candle by generating a certain sound-frequency. That sounds complicated and a bit like magic. But after some trial and error, it worked! They already knew that Coca Cola bottles could also emit gas similar to rockets, and spin around in circles on a central ball bearing when the air in it is excited by the sound waves from a loudspeaker. This had been previously demonstrated to the group by Jérôme de Meurichy, a fourth-year polymechanic apprentice, using this type of Helmholtz resonator. The experiments were all assembled by apprentices from the Department of Physics. Jérôme liked the fact that the apprentices had to resolve a series of practical problems before the experiments could be demonstrated so smoothly to the guests.
Soldering, milling and testing
The sisters Ricarda and Clara also tried out the candle experiment. It turned out to be quite challenging to strike the fork with the little hammer so precisely as to produce the right frequency. The experiment only succeeds if you also manage to get the fork right at the opening of the resonance chamber. Meanwhile, one of the two girls proudli pulled her self-made parts out of her pocket: a milled key ring and a soldered and milled torch. "The moment when all these torches lit up together while testing, that was really great!" noted Myriam Leisi, who picked up the children and accompanied them to lunch. Cornel Andreoli, one of the teachers and organiser of the “Zukunftstag” programme at the Departement of Physics, was also pleased with the success of this year's event.
