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Wetenschapsdag 2025 brings many curious visitors to ARCNL

Published on October 10, 2025
From left to right: An ARCNL researcher shines a flashlight on a piece of chocolate on a table. A young child leans over and looks at the chocolate curiously. Her father points his phone at the chocolate, possibly to take a photo. Her mother stands behind them.
A curious young visitor observes light patterns on chocolate. Photo: ARCNL

We had another great edition of the Wetenschapsdag this past weekend! It was a pleasure to welcome many curious visitors to our institute for fun demonstrations, lectures and lab tours. 

For some, it was their first visit, and we had many young future scientists engaging with our researchers. Others have joined our open day for many years, some even planning this year’s visit on a print-out of the program!

It was a busy, lively day. As always, our kid’s craft table was packed! Our three rotating lab tours were also very popular – never a dull moment! Some of the highlights: 

🍫 Making cool rainbow patterns on tasty chocolate, 

👟 Measuring the friction forces of our own shoes with Bart Weber, 

💻 Learning about how computer chips are made with Wim van der Zande, 

🌈 Seeing all the colors of the rainbow with DIY color splitters, 

and much more! See you again next year 👋 

Wim van der Zande, director of ARCNL, gives a lecture to a mixed audience. He points to the screen, which shows a slide titled 'Chips "printen" met licht', which is Dutch for '"Printing" chips with light', and shows an illustration of the inside of a nanolithography machine used to make computer chips.
Wim van der Zande gives a talk about how computer chips are made. Photo: ARCNL

The Wetenschapsdag is an annual event organized by the research institutes at Amsterdam Science Park: University of Amsterdam, Centrum Wiskunde & Informatica, Nikhef, ARCNL, and AMOLF. It is part of the national Weekend van de Wetenschap (Weekend of Science): https://weekendvandewetenschap.nl/ 

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Visiting address

  • Science Park 106
  • 1098 XG Amsterdam
  • The Netherlands

Delivery address

  • Science Park 102
  • 1098 XG Amsterdam
  • The Netherlands

Mail address

  • PO Box 93019
  • 1090 BA Amsterdam
  • The Netherlands

© ARCNL 2025