On this first morning in San Francisco we visited Lentinklab, which is founded by David Lentink. The first paper was published in 2004. The Lentinklab is mostly driven by the interests of David himself. With the students he brainstorms about new research projects, of which he has a broad spectrum of ideas. The main interest of the lab is to find out more about the flight and behaviour of birds, insects, bats, maple leaves, and Read more…
It was 5:40 and everyone was already gathered in the lobby of the hotel. This day would signify the change from the northern to the southern part of the Study Tour. The plane would depart at 9:25 in the morning and there was still much to do. All luggage had to be transported to the airport with one fewer car than the trip from Vancouver to Seattle. To make sure this would fit, the committee Read more…
Today was one of the few completely free days during our study trip and everyone decided to do something different. Since we are in Seattle, some people took their time to explore downtown Seattle with the Pike Place Market and the majestic Space Needle with its glamorous view. Other people took a more relaxed approach to this day and spent most of their morning in their bed sleeping. One group went to Mount Rainier National Read more…
After a rumbling night with an earthquake of magnitude 4.6 near Seattle, everybody managed to wake up very early. We then went on a lovely roadtrip in which the green landscape of Seattle with a lot of water everywhere turned into a dry desert with huge cliffs. After enjoying this roadtrip for four hours, we reached the facility of LIGO Hanford. The LIGO (Laser Interferometry Gravitational wave Observatory) project was first proposed in 1989 but Read more…
University of Washington In the morning we visited the University of Washington, specifically two institutions called the Clean Energy Testbeds and the Ginger Labs. The University of Washington was founded in 1861 and has approximately 45.000 students enrolled. The Clean Energy Testbeds is part of the Clean Energy Institute of the university and is created 2 years ago to speed up the process from research to production. The institute may be compared to the Dutch Read more…
The 10th of July marked the BE’s final day in Canada, featuring one more visit before crossing the US border later on in the day. Our last Canadian visit was to particle physics research institute TRIUMF. Originally constructed in 1968 as a collaboration between the University of British Columbia, Simon Fraser University and the University of Victoria as the TRI-University Meson Facility, it features research on an extremely large range of topics, which are all Read more…
The central themes of today’s visits could be summed to the area of material physics, which was well-received by the students and supervisors of the study tour. We started the day with a crash course quantum computing by one of our supervisors to explain some professional jargon used in these kinds of areas. Simon Fraser University In the morning we went to Simon Fraser University where we visited the Dodge Group and Broun Lab. Read more…
The first visit of the study tour was to the University of British Columbia (UBC) in Vancouver. UBC was established in 1908, making it the oldest university in British Columbia. Nevertheless, the two research centers that we visited were established more recently. These research centers are the Fluid Mechanics Lab (2001) and the Stewart Blusson Quantum Matter Institute (2010). Both the Fluid Mechanics Lab and the Stewart Blusson Quantum Matter Institute are located on the Read more…
Day 3 was the day which allowed us the freedom of movement around: we picked up the cars which were reserved for us. The group was split in two, with 12 drivers and 2 committee taking the Canada metro line back to Vancouver airport to pick up the cars. The other group was tasked with securing the luggage at the hostel, checking out and generally relaxing. Some of the remaining committee members picked up some Read more…
This was our first full day in Vancouver, which was completely free for the participants. Everyone was still recovering from their jetlag and so we were all awake quite early. Some went running early and others tried to get some more sleep. A large portion of the group rented bikes for the day and went to discover the city centre. Stanley Park with its beautiful view of the ocean was visited by most. Large groups Read more…