Physics Festival Teaches Community the Fun of Blowing Shit Up

This past weekend, the College of Science put on its annual Physics and Engineering Festival. This year’s festival featured a lecture about science’s role in breweries, a tour from a Nobel Laureate and over 200 hands-on exhibits available in an open house format throughout the Mitchell Physics Building and Institute. Most importantly, the festival reminded the Bryan/College Station community how fun it is to blow shit up.

Dozens of physics faculty spent time building and improving their demonstrations over the past year. “I’m so excited for the rest of the community to see what we do here,” one professor said, referring to the crazy explosions that people came for in between all the nerd stuff. “This is our largest outreach event every year. I really believe what we do here turns kids into aspiring scientists.”

The festival was well received by the community. It concluded outdoors with the “Five Barrel Depth Charge” demo which featured barrels full of water exploding due to the phase transition of nitrogen. “That was crazy! Those barrels shot the water, like, two or three stories high!” said Kyle Tao, a 12-year-old Bryan resident.

Tao’s father, Keith, was glad he took his son to the festival. “I was worried that Kyle would be too young to understand how all these demos worked,” Mr. Tao said, “but it turns out he didn’t even care. He just ran from exhibit to exhibit, picking out ones with loud noises or bright colors.”

The chief organizer of the Physics and Engineering Festival was thrilled with this year’s turnout. “I think we really did a lot to teach these kids about science. Maybe some of the younger kids will consider physics as a future career option. Or at least be nicer to the nerdy kids in school.”

 

—Anime Sciences