On 11 May 2024 our Centre participated (along 5 other Dioscuri Centres) in the German embassy open doors day. We had a nice stand in the embassy building, which very quickly got crowded with the general public.
We presented an experiment on mixing water and dye-stained water in a microfluidic channel and in a “macrofluidic” Y-type junction with some tubes and syringes attached. A non-intuitive outcome of this experiment (the liquids mix in the macroscopic juction but not in the micro-fluidic junction) is the result of a lack of turbulence in microfluidic flows. This is actually a problem for us as we work a lot with microfluidics and would like to be able to mix different liquids such as a bacterial growth medium and an antibiotic. Fortunately, others have found a way of achieving this, which we can use.
We also had two computer games: “Epidemic!” which is a basic simulator of a COVID epidemic I wrote a few years ago (the game can be played here), and a newer game “Beat the gliobastoma” (click here for the English and Polish versions) in which the objective is to cure a virtual patient who has glioblastoma – a type of a brain cancer. We have a project on glioblastoma chemotherapy which is what inspired this game.
The games (especially the cancer game) were a smasher, especially among the young audience as you can see in the pictures below.
Many thanks for the staff from the German Embassy (in particular Tomasz Wałkuski and Joanna Jones) for inviting us again!
And especially warm thanks to Ilyas, Joanna, Klaudia, and Patrycja for helping me out with preparations (Klaudia, Patrycja, Joanna), beta-testing the games (Ilyas) and manning the stand (Ilyas, Joanna, Patrycja).
Dioscuri Centre for Physics and Chemistry of Bacteria 