A day of discovery at RIKEN
15 June 2012 (Volume 7 Issue 5)
Visitors had the chance to participate in various activities at the RIKEN Open Day
The RIKEN Open Day is a once-a-year opportunity for budding scientists and the interested public to get to know more about the cutting-edge research being conducted by the organization’s researchers. The Open Days are held at each of RIKEN’s five main institutes in Wako, Tsukuba, Yokohama, Kobe and Harima, as well as the Sendai and Nagoya facilities, and typically attract over 20,000 visitors.
The first Open Day in 2012 was held on 20–21 April at the Tsukuba Institute, where visitors had the chance to see the work being done at the BioResource Center (BRC).
The Wako Institute, RIKEN’s administrative headquarters and home to several of its major research centers, accepted visitors on 21 April and provided an array of hands-on experiments and events. Visitors to the campus were introduced to nanoscience, superconductivity, lasers and biotechnology, as well as brain science, supercomputing, molecular simulations and magnetism. There was also the opportunity for visitors to take a closer look at RIKEN’s facilities for heavy ion beams and nuclear physics.
The RIBA (Robot for Interactive Body Assistance) II on display at the RIKEN Open Day
A number of lectures were held throughout the day, covering fields such as cell fate, genetic recombination and photosynthesis. Visitors had the chance to use a scanning electron microscope and even a femtoscope, and to investigate protein structures and learn about the mechanism of memory.
The third of this year’s Open Days was held at the Harima Institute, home of the SPring-8 radiation synchrotron and SACLA X-ray Free Electron Laser (XFEL) facilities, on 29 April.
The Yokohama Institute and the Nagoya and Sendai facilities will hold open days for the public later this summer. The Yokohama Institute will welcome guests on 29 September with the facilities at Nagoya and Sendai both opening on 4 August. The additional dates will give visitor who missed the events at Wako another chance to experience RIKEN at first hand.
