This year, the event was held in St. Petersburg’s 300th anniversary park, and lasted two whole days, twice as long as last years festival. The event included a variety of different lectures and workshops, fitness workouts, films and concerts. To help navigate the huge event and decide on what you want to participate in, two helpful mobile apps were made available, one from vkontakte for iOS and Andriod users, and another “GoFest” made by ITMO students which by the end of the festival about 300 people downloaded. You can read more about “GoFest” here, and the in-built app quest with a prize for those who completed it. The ITMO developers added an extra convenient feature, the application could be used over bluetooth and didn’t require an internet connection.
The application ultimately led visitors to the ITMO University area, a sanctuary for all science nerds and a haven for anyone interested in all-things bright, interesting and innovative! The interactive exhibit based on the famous cartoon “Futurama” featured “Bender” the talking robot who greeted those entering. Visitors had a chance to put their heads into Futurama characters with video stand-ins where you could try on the figure of Dr. Zoidberg and Professor Farnsworth.
Other Futurama characters also took center stage with Leela conducting fitness classes and a chance to try the cryosauna similar to the one that froze Fry for 1,000 years. The two giant foam Poke balls at the venue were also very popular as was evident from the abundance of photographs with them on social media.
Just like at GEEK PICNIC, the Student Scientific Laboratory of Optical Engineering, Open Laboratory of Ideas, Techniques and Practices, and FabLab at ITMO University continued to teach people how to make 3D pens, turn on light bulbs without wires, and find their way through an optical maze. The Lux Aeterna tent also made another appearance since the GEEK PICNIC, showcasing some of ITMO University’s High-Performance Computing Department and eScience Research Institute’s work. Some of the highlights were the atlas of the human body, where you could choose layers and analyse various systems in the body, observing what will happen if any part of the circulatory system clots. Another screen showed how diseases spread through trains, showing the number of healthy, infected and immune passengers based on the options selected, for example how many carriers of a disease enter at each station and the train’s route.
The computing genius’s at ITMO University not only showed off their previous research but also created a few interactive features to their work, concurrently gathering data during VK-Fest. For example, a map was displayed showing how participants at VK Fest were posting photos online, with data gathered from Instagram hashtags and geotags. A number of visitors were also sent off to gather data around the festival, equipped with GoPro cameras and a headstrap, and using their cell phones, the position, speed, and acceleration of these participants were measured as they crossed crowded areas by the stage. Vladislav Karbovskiy, from the City Information Lab and eScience Research Institute explained how the purpose of the experiment was to find out more about “fundamental features of crowd behaviour… based on fundamental ideas from the Kumbha-Mela experiment.” The study, he says, “aims to contribute to the development of decision support systems for public events” such as these.
One more noteworthy moment associated with ITMO University’s presence at the festival was a lecture related to the role of education. Vladimir Vasiliyev, ITMO University’s Rector also made some comments on stage, talking about the importance of an individualized approach for each student, allowing them to choose their own educational path. “Russian Universities, according to official wording, provide “educational services”, but if we treat education as a service then we will end up with semi-experts. Education at ITMO University is a joint effort between teachers and students, and over the last few years, students are taking more and more initiative,” and this was evident during VK Fest, with students explaining and demonstrating innovations which they have themselves had designed.
