The seventh edition of the Sofia Science Festival took place from May 11 to 14. The festival is also part of the Sofia Municipality Calendar of Cultural Events.
Created in 2011 by the British Council and the Forum Democrit, and under the patronage of the Bulgarian Ministry of Education and Science, from its very first year, the festival has attracted a large number of supporters. Due to its continued growth, the event moved to Sofia Tech Park this year, where it had bigger space for events and lectures and even more areas for interactive zones and demonstration spots.
Screenings and presentations for children and adults were held in the building of innovation forum “John Atanassoff”. The Exploratorium zone held all the demonstration corners, where young and old lovers of science and technology could play the piano but not with keys, but with eight oranges connected in an electric circuit; control a robot, watch with VR glasses, draw with a 3D pen, monitor the work of a 3D printer, and more. In the open area in front of the Expertarium, noisy and colorful chemistry experiments began every two hours, entertaining the youngest visitors of the festival.
The spectacular “Fame lab of Famelab” with nine young stars of science was a fabulous finale of the festival. Each participant had three minutes to impress the jury and win the right to present Bulgaria at the championship of Famelab in London. Stories with explosives, how to break a hologram, how scientists interfere with gene control were amongst the tales of young mathematicians, chemists and biologists. The jury awarded a visit to London to Veronika Koleva, a chemistry student at Sofia University, for her three-minute story about the hairs on the gecko’s feet, which have the ability to increase their surface in such a way as to help the gecko stick better when climbing. Three years ago, a fantastic material with the same ability was chemically created – a polyurethane elastomer that can help NASA astronauts in their space walks in the absence of gravity.
