A Virtual and Invisible World of Engineering Surprises Await You at RTU’s Night of Scientists

The Night of Scientists is a free event and is designed to allow participants to get better acquainted with the remarkable work of scientists and discover more about the exciting world of engineering and high technology.

Learning opportunities will include:

• The RTU Electrical and Environmental Engineering department. Visitors will also learn about the amount of waste generated by health-care activities and potential recycling and reuse processes.
• Want to try your hand at soldering and test Ohms law (the formula that makes it easy to calculate voltage, current, and resistance)? Meet with the RTU Electronics and Telecommunications faculty, who will also help you assemble an electronic circuit and LED lights.
• Swing by the Electroacoustics laboratory to learn how sound is produced and to experience complete silence in an anechoic room.
• The Faculty of Materials Science and Applied Chemistry looks forward to sharing the secrets of luminescence and demonstrating how to grow a stalagmite—while current RTU students demonstrate flaming explosive experiments every hour in the courtyard.
• Get acquainted with medical technologies and smart textiles with the Mechanical Sciences, Transport, and Aeronautics faculty, who will also explain the procedures used to measure the strength of a material. 
• The Faculty of Civil Engineering invites you to get familiarized with future house construction technologies in its 3D concrete printing laboratory, explore the invisible world around us through the examination of our smallest “neighbors” under a microscope, and take a virtual tour of the RTU Ķīpsala student campus.
• Meet with sports legend Mārtiņš Rubens and luge athlete/RTU student Anda Upīte at the RTU Science and Innovation Center to learn about RTU’s latest sled sports innovations and experience a descent in a sled down a virtual track. Participants will also learn about the secrets of prototyping and can experiment with a 3D printer and laser cutter.
• Not far from the Ķīpsala campus in the RTU Curiosity Center Futurimo Rīga (located at Meža Street 1/k-6), a futuristic adventure awaits children—a science disco and chemistry experiments.
• In the National Library of Latvia, RTU scientists and students working at the European Center for Nuclear Research (CERN) will be waiting to introduce interested parties to an upcoming exhibition about the work of CERN scientists and researchers. Topics include the Big Bang Theory and the daily life of particle physicists and accelerator technologists participating in CERN’s scientific experiments.

The Night of Scientists will conclude the 2023 RTU Innovation Marathon. The day-long event on September 29 will be held under the ambit of the RTU Science and Innovation Center, in coordination with various partners.