Experience the Future: researchers from Ciências ULisboa were present at Pavilhão de Portugal

At the ‘Experience the Future’ event, the University of Lisbon (ULisboa) showcased the very best of what its schools have to offer – and, as one would expect, the Faculty of Sciences (Ciências ULisboa) was there in full force at the Pavilhão de Portugal. Researchers and lecturers from Ciências ULisboa attended on 23 May with 14 science outreach activities aimed at children, young people and families. From robots to the depths of the oceans or personalised medicine, there was no shortage of topics to spark interest.

In the field of Physics, Ciências ULisboa was represented by several researchers from the Laboratory of Instrumentation and Experimental Particle Physics (LIP), who developed the activity “With eyes on particles”, which reveals how cosmic rays pass through the body. The activity was developed in partnership with LIP members conducting research at the Instituto Superior Técnico and featured the participation of José Maneira, a lecturer in the Department of Physics, and PhD student Joan Kladnik.

Evaristo.ai, which has gained a reputation for its ability to search for information on public services and for the clarity of its discourse, also attended Experience the Future to demonstrate how to create a chatbot with its own personality. António Branco, a lecturer in the Department of Informatics, and João Ricardo Silva, a researcher in the field of Informatics, were the hosts of the activity entitled “Evaristo.ai: Your Personal Chatbot”.

Also, in the Department of Informatics, there was a demonstration entitled “VR Boxing: Immersive Boxing for the Blind”, which uses virtual reality as a training tool for blind boxers. João Guerreiro, a lecturer in the Department of Informatics (DI), represented the department at Experience the Future.

For those seeking new study and career opportunities, the activity “Are You a Data Scientist?” was the main attraction. The demonstration was led by Cátia Pesquita, a lecturer at the DI, who outlined the paths and challenges for those wishing to embark on the study of the various tools that today enable the extraction and processing of information from various types of data.

As relationships with machines may look different in the future, it fell to Isabel Neto, a lecturer at the DI, to demonstrate how to program robots. The demonstration was entitled “Social and Inclusive Robots”. And to round off the presentation directly from the DI at Ciências ULisboa, Vinicius Cogo showed that hackers do not necessarily have to be bad, with the activity “Ethical Hacker Mission”.

The Department of Energy and Earth Sciences (DCTE) and the Instituto Dom Luiz (IDL) organised a number of demonstrations and activities. Jorge Maia Alves, a lecturer at the DCTE, and Célia Lee, Science and Technology Manager at the IDL, who contributed to several activities, unveiled a battery that runs on air, water and two containers during the activity “A new way of storing energy”. Meanwhile, Andreia Pereira, a researcher at IDL, demonstrated how whales sing in the evocative demonstration “Waves that speak: from the Earth to the whales”. Ana Jesus and Ágata Alveirinho Dias, both lecturers at DCTE, “dived” to the ocean floor to showcase minerals from different eras. The activity was entitled “Mineralisation of the ocean floor: past and future”.

Among the activities organised by DCTE, there was also an opportunity to explore the 40-year evolution of Portuguese beaches via satellite imagery, and measurements of giant waves that keep a close eye on what is happening in Nazaré. Célia Lee took on the task of raising awareness with the demonstrations “Are the beaches disappearing?” and “How to measure a giant wave?”.

The Department of Mathematical Sciences (DCM) also took the opportunity to attend ULisboa’s ‘Experience the Future’ event. Helena Mouriño, a lecturer at the DCM, and Master’s student Tiago Stoffel demonstrated how statistics can help in choosing a treatment and contribute to the development of personalised medicine. The activity was entitled “The Role of Statistics in Personalised Medicine”.

And staying with mathematics, there were also games, puzzles and brain-teasing challenges in an activity led by Ana Rute Domingos, a lecturer at the DCM, during the “Experience Mathematics” session.

Ana Rute Domingos also took part, in collaboration with Ana Catarina Monteiro, who is also a lecturer at the DCM, in presenting puzzles and geometry challenges during the activity in a mathematical garden. And for this reason, the session was titled “Mathematical Garden: explore, experiment, discover”.