The 3rd edition of the Crazy for Physics programme, funded by the Fundació Catalunya / La Pedrera and coordinated by the ICN2 and IFAE, ended at Món Natura Pirineus with a weekend devoted to science and the future perspectives of the participants. Some 25 outstanding high school students enjoyed a year of theoretical and practical experiences at some of the best Catalan research centres.
The Fundació Catalunya / La Pedrera has developed a Program to open the doors of the most relevant research institutes to the most excellent high school students: Crazy for Science (Bojos per la Ciència). ICN2 and IFAE led in 2016 the successful first edition of Crazy for Physics (Bojos per la Física) that has closed 3 successful editions, with a fourth edition starting next January.
This initiative allows 25 students to interact during 16 work sessions with researchers from ICN2 and IFAE, the program coordinators, and other excellent collaborators offering exciting experiences from UAB, Alba Synchrotron, ICMAB and ICFO. The long list of Groups that made it possible from the ICN2 include the Electron Microscopy Unit (Belen Ballesteros, Marcos Rosado); the Force Probe Microscopy and Surface Group (Jordi Fraxedas, Maria José Esplandiu); the Inorganic Nanoparticles Group (Neus Bastus, Jordi Piella, Javier Patarroyo); the Nanobioelectronics and Biosensors Group (Daniel Quesada, Amadeo Sena); the Physics and Engineering of Nanodevices Group (Adriana Isabel Figueroa García); and, the Theoretical and Computational Nanoscience Group (Jose Hugo Garcia, Marc Vila). The ICN2 Marketing and Communication Department (Àlex Argemí, Ana de la Osa) coordinated the ICN2 participation in the program.
The third edition of Bojos per la Física came to an end last 17-18 November with an emotion packed weekend at Món Natura Pirineus. During the weekend its participants enjoyed one last scientific session, which explained particle physics using Lego blocks, and prepared with Àlex Argemí and Sebastián Grinschpun, heads of the Marketing and Communication Departments at ICN2 and IFAE respectively, a short presentation about the impact that the programme had in their vision of science and their career expectancies. The presentations were delivered in front of an audience including parents and relatives of the participants who shared with them their passion for physics.