SOI at Fantasy Basel

From the 9th to the 11th of May, the Science Olympiad organized a booth at Fantasy Basel to recruit new participants.

We offered Tower of Hanoi, a card sorting game, a line-following robot as well as a “Science Oracle”. Our “Science oracle” differs from ordinary oracles in that they give you answers to your questions about science instead of attempting divination. This has the significant advantage that we give far more concrete and insightful answers than our competitor in Delphi. For example, did you know that the reason the sky is blue is actually not because air is just slightly blue (if that were the case, how do you explain that the air suddenly turns orange/red at sunset?)

Tower of Hanoi in particular did garner quite a lot of attention, so there were plenty of opportunities to either directly motivate potential new participants to attend our workshops or else give information for people who could encourage students they know to participate.

Last but not least, we offered chocolate rewards from a Gacha machine for people who managed to successfully solve Tower of Hanoi. Gacha machines are Japanese toy dispensers, which output small plastic balls filled with toys or, in our case, sweets.