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From october 26 to October 31, the RAISE Village involved visitors of all ages with workshops and interactive activities in the EDU area.

Researchers from the CNR (Spoke 2 and 3) and UniGe (Spoke 1) guided the public, mainly schools and families, through three game-based workshops:
1. “Neuro games. A journey into the central nervous system” (October 26 and 28, by Cristina D’arrigo, Denise Galante, Sara Labbate, CNR-SCITEC);
2. “Capturing emotions with technology” (October 29, by Eleonora Ceccaldi, Casa Paganini – InfoMus, University of Genoa – Department of Computer Science, Bioengineering, Robotics and Systems Engineering);
3. “Nexus Island. Discovering the coastal zones” (October 30 and 31, by Giancarlo Bachi and Chiara Santinelli, CNR-IBF, in collaboration with the European Molecular Biology Laboratory).

In the first workshop, visitors were involved in a series of games based on the five senses and memory. Between mysterious boxes, similar but different images, noises of unknown origin, smells to recognize, flavors and objects to identify through touch, visitors were encouraged to “play” all their senses. The game allows you to learn while having fun what the central nervous system is and how it works, made up of the brain and spinal cord, which is the guardian of our cognitive, sensory and motor functions. A wonderful and complex system, responsible for a wide range of functions, including learning, memory, movement and then sensory processing.

In the second workshop, it was possible to explore some innovations in the field of automatic emotion recognition, starting from CambiaColore, a technology in which through markers placed on the arm it is possible to express emotions thanks to drawing, up to other technologies for the automatic detection of the emotional state through the reading of body movements and facial expressions. Young people and adults had fun using an interactive table to create a sort of collective digital work, while in the second game they classified emotions together, as positive or negative, playing with cards and answering the questions of the animators, animators, researchers and researchers.

The third workshop consists of a role-playing game, in which the participants simulated setting off on a scientific expedition to discover Nexus Island and the organisms that inhabit it. This playful activity took place by moving barefoot on a map placed on the floor and using a game “card”. Also guided by the storytelling of the person who conducted the workshop, events were introduced, which represent a threat to the health of the sea and the people on the island. “What are the causes? What are the possible solutions? What tools can be used to keep the situation under control and prevent the problem from recurring in the future?” Like researchers in the field, visitors were invited to answer these questions. More information on the game from the European Molecular Biology Laboratory website.

As Andrea Sessarego (Associazione Festival della Scienza, Spoke 5) highlighted, this is a new area in the RAISE Village, therefore a novelty for the 2024 edition: the “sold-out” of the three laboratories, with therefore full reservations for all days, and the continuous flow of schools and families in this area, and above all the active and fun participation of visitors, show that the RAISE Village has therefore been able to involve its audience also through the experience of the game. The researchers from the CNR and UniGE, who conducted the three games, with the support of the festival animators, expressed great satisfaction, both for the response of the public and for the opportunity to put themselves this experience with citizens, presenting in a playful way their research themes, such as memory and senses, emotions and care for the environment.