F4E band make students fuse together!

A band of ten percussionists makes its way to the Research in Action pavilion of the Catalan Education Fair. Five of them dressed as deuterium with cymbals and bells enter from the left. The other five dressed as tritium playing the large drums enter from the right. They are heading for a big rhythmic collision and a lot of noise. They turn the beat up, they hit their drums harder and shout one word: FUSION! They move, they dance, they fuse and as they carry on dancing they invite students to join them. This year there was something extra in the participation of F4E…our stand was not just seen. It was heard big time!

It’s the second time round that F4E takes part to this annual event which is the meeting point for more than 80,000 students trying to choose academic studies and careers. F4E used this opportunity to advertise ITER and direct science students in the fields of energy, climate change and fusion research. EFDA kindly offered the mini-fusion expo which travelled all the way from Slovenia with brand new panels in Spanish about the history of fusion, scientific data on ITER, images and mock-ups. F4E deployed a communications taskforce to be present throughout the event and through different interactive activities about energy, magnets and buzz balls got students interested in the future of this experiment. As expected, the Mellatron fusion experiment got visitors curious not only by its looks but also by its demonstration of laws in physics.

Talking to students was by far the most rewarding part of the exhibition. We had an opportunity to meet those who knew their tokamaks and superconductivity inside out, others who wanted to learn more about the fusion fuel and sustainability and those who heard about fusion for the first time and left wishing to present the ITER project in class.