ALMA participates in the Engineering and Sciences Festival

25 October, 2016 / Read time: 2 minutes

Over 15 thousand people visited the School of Physical Sciences and Mathematics (FCFM) of the Universidad de Chile during the 3rd Engineering and Sciences Festival held from October 20 to 22, 2016 in Santiago, where ALMA had three exhibits.

The School opened its doors for high school students and the general public to discover, explore and interact with different activities developed on more than 40 thousand square feet in this educational institute. Participants visited stands from different departments with live experiments, went on guided tours through their laboratories, and participated in workshops and talks given by national science awards winners and academics, among other activities.

ALMA participated with two exhibits: one that shared the history and operation of the observatory, and another that described 10 of the most important discoveries to date. It also participated in the space designed to present the ALMA Sounds project, where visitors interacted through special platforms with sound banks and created their own cosmic music.

This was accompanied by a workshop on the ALMA Sounds audio bank creation process, given by engineer Ricardo Finger; and a workshop open to the public on ALMA, astronomy and engineering, given by astronomer Antonio Hales. The activity finalized with a presentation of ALMA Sounds, including the participation of DJ Fantasna, Hales and Finger.

Kids playing with ALMA Sounds. Credit: Ralph Bennet · ALMA (ESO/NAOJ/NRAO) | Download image

The public appreciated on big screen ALMA discoveries. Credit: Ralph Bennet · ALMA (ESO/NAOJ/NRAO) | Download image

ALMA exhibited it’s discoveries, history and the ALMA Sounds project on one of the biggest rooms of the festival. Credit: Ralph Bennet · ALMA (ESO/NAOJ/NRAO) | Download image

Additional information

ALMA is a partnership of ESO (representing its member states), NSF (USA) and NINS (Japan), together with NRC (Canada), NSC and ASIAA (Taiwan), and KASI (Republic of South Korea), in cooperation with the Republic of Chile. The Joint ALMA Observatory is operated by ESO, AUI/NRAO and NAOJ.