Finally, it's time for my recap of the steemSTEM meetup at CERN/the LHC. It was so great, I barely know how to start, so I'll give you a rundown of the events on the 8th and 9th of February!
The full list of participants was (alphabetically ordered):
- @alexs1320
- @ana.luiza
- @aurel.proorocu
- @bendelgreco
- @ceybiicien
- @dber
- @ertwro
- @fredrikaa
- @galotta
- @grandpere
- @howo
- @justtryme90 (+1 guest)
- @kerriknox (+2 guests)
- @lemouth
- @reggaemuffin
- @saunter
- @scienceangel
- @suesa
- @tristan-muller
22 people!
8th of February
In the evening, @reggaemuffin and I met up with @grandpere , @fredrikaa , @lemouth and @galotta at the Geneva train station to then drive to the restaurant "Le Casanova" where we met everyone but @tristan-muller , @saunter and @ceybiicien .
@tristan-muller was supposed to arrive the next day, but @saunter and @ceybiicien were stranded in Freiburg! For them, an odyssey began, about which they'll probably write themselves.
The rest of us ordered some food and socialized, aided by the personalized name badges I had previously created for everyone.
@dber , the MVP, drove @reggaemuffin and me to our Airbnb. We had brought him some Kinder Eggs as a thank you (he's from the USA and Kinder Eggs are illegal), which resulted in the shadiest transfer of Kinder Eggs ever.
9th of February
At 10 am, we met at the "Globe of Science" and went inside to look at the exhibition.
They had multiple animations, interesting things to look at and a short movie every half an hour.
Look at all these people listening to @lemouth explain cool physics stuff!
At 11 am, @saunter and @ceybiicien finally arrived, exhausted from their complicated journey but happy to join us!
Outside of the globe, there was a model version of the LHC which looked quite cool.
After that, we went into the "microcosm" exhibition, which had even more info on the LHC, awkwardly dancing recordings and this neat thing:
Oh, and we shouldn't forget the cosmic ray detector, which detects cosmic rays and sends a representation of that to the "floor" of the entrance, which then lights up:
Lunch followed, where we ate at some Indian place I forgot the name of, maybe someone else remembers. They had cheese naan! It was so great!
Then we all got into the cars and drove to the LHC, the highlight of our meetup.
First, @lemouth held a short presentation (you can find it split into several posts on his blog).
And then, lead by the wonderful @freyablekman , we went ... down.
"This is elevator is your only way up, in case of a problem."
Not really something I wanted to hear (can you spot me?).
We saw smart, hard-working people ...
... blinking warning signs ...
...server farms to mine bitcoin collect data...
...something I really wanted to touch ...
... and finally, the CMS detector!
So many cables! Am I right, @howo and @reggaemuffin ? :P
I even got to take a picture of myself ;)
And an even better picture with the wonderful @scienceangel <3
After all that, several people left but the majority continued to spend the evening together.
We had a small scare, as suddenly @saunter and @ceybiicien vanished into thin air, nobody knew where they were and nobody was able to reach them. After all that had happened to them on their way to Geneva, it was a horrible thought that they were standing somewhere alone, in the snow.
Luckily, that wasn't the case, they had just checked into a hotel and @saunter even joined us a bit later.
All in all, it was a wonderful 2 days and I've still not fully recovered from all the positive emotions I've felt. I've never been surrounded by so many lovable nerds smart people who were just genuinely happy to be there and see each other.
Shout out to:
@dber who was always willing to drive people where they needed to be, despite sneaky speed bumps, small roads and a less than cooperative navigation system.
@howo whose first reaction upon seeing me was "SUESA! I CAN SEE YOUR FACE!" and will come visit together with @fredrikaa in March.
@scienceangel who's a biologist too and shared my missing knowledge of particle physics. We had a lot of fun anyway <3
@lemouth , for organizing all of this despite being already held together only by extreme stress and some bubblegum (and a super stylish red jacket :P )
I'm looking forward to repeating this, meeting everyone who was there again. Preferably as soon as possible!
EDIT: @alexs1320 reminded me of my favorite quote from that meetup:
STAY WITH THE GROUP OR YOU'RE DOING IT WRONG!
