The Sensor CDT took part in three events at the Cambridge Science Festival 2018, demonstrating its wide range of research and teaching how to build an electronic sensor using readily available open source hardware. Students also designed and distributed a booklet with science experiments for children.
Sensor Research
This year's Science Festival topic was sensing, providing the Sensor CDT with a great platform to engage with the public.
Image cedit: Maximilian Ge
Students and academic staff of the Sensor CDT presented fun activities around their sensor research. Visitors observed "water bears" through an open source 3D printed microscope, controlled by a Raspberry Pi and developed in Cambridge and discovered how molecules smell differently depending on their handedness.
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student Raphaël Jacquat designed an Experiment Book for curious science lovers who like to turn their kitchens into labs. It contains experiments from Sensor CDT students Luca Mascheroni and Christoph Franck as well as Sensor CDT lecturers Róisín Owens and Ljiljana Fruk, such as extracting DNA from strawberries, growing crystals, a temperature sensor made from yeast and experiments using our own senses.
Farah Alimagham organised a mock clean room setup, where children and adults alike could experience how it is to work in protective gear, making electronic circuits, operating microscopes and wondering through a virtual reality cleanroom.
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Teaching sensor design
The Sensor CDT ran a hands-on workshop for teenagers and adults introducing them to open-source hardware, basic electronics and sensors. Everybody made a sensor which indicated temperature through the colour changes of an LED.
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