Science Day (Open Day) Amsterdam Science Park

Demos /activities
Target audience: children aged 10 and above, and adults

CWI opens the Social XR lab for the Open Day, showing how XR can help us communicate and collaborate. The demonstration takes users to a virtual museum. Friends can visit together and talk naturally. This new VR experience lets users interact with museum pieces in new ways. Are you curious? Please watch the video here

For more information about the XR experience you can check our Sound and Vision museum visit and Exhibition “Fashion Beneath the Skin"

Demonstration
Target audience: children aged 6 and above, and adults

Do you want to know what's inside a surprise egg before you open it? We can look inside the egg without opening it using X-rays. Come to our Flex Ray lab and we will scan a surprise egg for you. We will also show you how to read a closed book using X-rays, how to find out how old a wooden artwork is, and if your apple is rotten inside.

Demonstration
Target audience: children and adults

We create sparks, a kind of mini lightning. We will explain how they are formed, their uses, and why we study them at CWI.

• how do you make polyhedra with cards?
  Target audience: children aged 8 and above, and adults building activity
• how do I find my way through the maze?
  target audience: children aged 6 and above
• building polyhedra with polydron
  Target audience: children aged 4 and above
  building activity
• secret codes and puzzles (folding and turtle puzzles), möbius strip cutting, who's afraid of yellow, blue and red?
  Target audience: children aged 8 and above
  cutting activity
• mathematical folding: hexaflexagons, the great tantalizer
  Target audience: children aged 8 and above, and adults
• Calcudoku
  Target audience: children aged 8 and above, and adults Math puzzles

Activity
Target audience: children and adults

An exhibition that makes theories and concepts come alive. Each installation is part of a journey through the quantum world, where play and education merge to create a unique experience. Ready to immerse yourself in the quantum revolution?

Get creative in the Quantum Jungle, an art installation that shows how superposition and wave-particle duality work with a wall of touch-sensitive springs and a sea of LEDs. Make a quantum particle, see a cool simulation, and guess where it is. Touch it!

Demonstration
Target audience: children aged 10 and above, and adults

Discover how to send secret messages using the power of quantum bits.

Demonstration/Activity
Target audience: children aged 13 and above, and adults

Future quantum computers will solve certain problems at astonishing speeds. What is a qubit and how does superposition work? Discover this with a life-sized model of a qubit and see how it differs from a standard bit in computers. Come along and learn all about this fascinating technology!

Workshop
Target audience: children aged 12 and above, and adults

Designing enjoyable games can be challenging and time-consuming. To simplify this process, we have developed the Vie app. Vie is a visual programming language that allows you to quickly design 2D games. You will receive a brief introduction and have the opportunity to create and test your own game rules.

Activity
Target audience: children aged 10 and above, and adults

We select a random member of the audience to set a PIN for their (hypothetical) bank card. We then attempt to guess the PIN they have set by trying all possible digits for the first number and observing the power consumption of the chip.

One of the observed power traces will differ from the others, corresponding to the correct guess of the first digit. We then repeat the process, guessing the remaining digits until we have successfully reconstructed the entire PIN.

Activity
Target audience: children

Modern computer chips contain billions of tiny switches connected by very thin wires. A key challenge is to connect these switches on a chip using as few wires as possible. To create these chips effectively, the wires can only be laid out horizontally or vertically in a fixed pattern. If you use too many wires, the chip requires more power, which is not environmentally friendly and also causes the chip to heat up. In this game, you will try to connect pins on a grid using as little wire as possible. Can you find the solution with the minimum amount of wire?

The travelling salesman problem

Activity
Target audience: children

You will travel to all the university cities in the Netherlands and, of course, want to plan your route as efficiently as possible. Your task is to find the shortest round trip visiting all these cities. If you succeed, you may choose a fun prize!

House with a cross competition

Activity
Target audience: children

Everyone knows the drawing game "house with a cross": you must draw a house with a cross inside it in one continuous line without retracing any line. Can you solve this? How many different ways can you think of to do it? Break the record and win a prize!

Find the shortest route through the maze

Activity
Target audience: children

Can you find the shortest route through the maze as quickly as possible?

Activity
Target audience: children aged 8 and above, and adults

Retro games are old video games that were once popular, such as Pac-Man or Galaga. These games remain enjoyable to play, even though they are much simpler than today’s games. The early algorithms (or 'programming recipes') used in retro games maximized the limited memory and small storage capacities of that era. These techniques laid the groundwork for modern games. In our demonstration, you can play a selection of these classics for yourself!

Sander Bohte

Modern Artificial Intelligence (AI) is heavily inspired by the functioning of the brain. But how does the brain actually work? More precisely, how is our brain capable of generating intelligent behaviour? And what do we mean by 'intelligent behaviour'? In his lecture, Sander addresses how the hundreds of billions of cells in our brain learn and execute intelligent behaviour. He explains the similarities with a computer but also explores the differences and how these distinctions can provide new insights for smarter AI and more energy-efficient computers.

Steven Pemberton

There's no intelligence in current AI systems, but apparently we think there is, and then get surprised when it gives wrong answers. Why is this, and what will happen when we get real intelligent systems?

This talk gives an introduction to AI as we currently know it, examines how we interact with it, and envisions the consequences of real AI emerging.

Please note: Only this lecture will be in English

Rob van der Mei

Waiting is a source of frustration for many people. Whether it’s waiting for an ambulance in an emergency, waiting for surgery in a hospital, waiting for admission to a care home, waiting in traffic, waiting at customs at the airport, or waiting for a tourist attraction, in all cases, waiting is unwelcome and a source of annoyance.
Using a number of concrete practical examples, Rob van der Mei will explain how, with knowledge of the "Mathematics of Annoyance," you can employ clever algorithms to reduce waiting times.

Renzo Scholman

Discover how artificial intelligence aids in creating optimal radiation treatment plans for prostate and cervical cancer. In this lecture, you will learn how the BRIGHT method — drawing on evolutionary processes, mathematics, and computer science — helps deliver the best radiation plans. A fascinating glimpse into the future of radiotherapy!

Christian Schaffner @Matrix One

Quantum computers work differently to regular computers. A quantum computer uses qubits, which can be in more than one state at once. This makes it easier for a quantum computer to solve problems like breaking encryption and modelling molecules.Please note: This lecture is not at CWI but at Matrix One (Science Park 301).