"Seeing the rise of a passion for science in children inspires us"

The entire EPICS (Exposition Publique des Inventions et Créations Scientifiques) team with Bruno Maquart, President of Universcience, Marie-Christine Lemardeley, President of ESPCI Paris and Deputy Mayor of Paris Higher Education, Research and Student Life, Jean-François Joanny, Director from ESPCI Paris, Sylvain Gilat, president of ESPCI Alumni and Jacques Lewiner, director of Fonds ESPCI Paris, physicist, entrepreneur and former Dean of Innovation and Entrepreneurship at PSL.

PSL: You are today about forty students from ESPCI Paris within EPICS. Can you briefly present your association?

M.K: The association EPICS was born in May 2012 because a group of students from ESPCI Paris felt a common desire to present the scientific work carried out within the ESPCI. Since then, the association is no longer limited to the school and expanded to present scientific principles of all kinds to the general public. We are first, second and third year students at ESPCI. Passionate about popularization, we regularly organize mediation events open to everyone, the purpose of which is to show the role of science in everyday life and to show the impact of research for a large number of people.

PSL: You organized from April 23rd to 29th "A Lab at the City" at the Cité de la Science. Can you tell us more about this experience?

M.K: The project was launched by the 2016-2017 mandate, with the aim of rebuilding an installation at the Cité des sciences and industry, similar to the one in 2014 by our association, "Inventors of the future.” Our project would not have been possible without the precious help of the Cité team who supported us. We also wish to thank all of our partners for their financial support. A critical part of the work as a mediator was interacting with the public; feedbacks were very positive, and many children and young people were passionate about what we presented to them (note: 500 visitors from the first hours of launching the event!). Many people said it was the best activity of their day visiting the City! For the members of our association, it was a very enriching experience thanks to this effort of scientific communication and it was also a very good training in scientific mediation, which is an essential skill for future engineers and scientists.

PSL: Visitors were free to leave messages on your stand. Which one did you particularly like?

M.K: The wall of free expression was indeed a good way to have the feedback from the public, especially from the children. We all keep this quotation in mind: "Patience is a virtue they possess. The wonderful world of science and physics is before me, under my curious eyes. I thank all the scientists for helping me discover so many things.” from Anouk, 10 – because her words particularly moved us. Seeing the rise of a passion for science, through this little girl, and many other children who visited the facility, is a great inspiration to us.

PSL: The entire scenography was made by students of the Ecole des Arts Décoratifs. How did you meet them? How did you work together?

M.K: We launched a call for tenders to the students from ENSAD and we quickly had answers from motivated students. That's how we met our scenographers, who did a great job. Regarding our collaboration, there were many debates between the members of our association who organized the stands and scenographers, especially to address the dimensions and specific needs of each stand. A model was proposed to us and validated following a dialogue. Finally, we worked together to build the stands of experiments and install everything at the Cité des Sciences. This weekend of construction and assembly was a little trying, but it really helped to weld the whole team!

PSL: What do you wish for the coming year?

M.K.: Success for future members of the association! The current office will be replaced at the end of the term and the first-year students who participated in the installation will take over the reins. On May 22nd, they will organize our next event: the development of a Chain Reaction, a large machine operating by chain reactions. We invite you to inquire and register to participate on the site of the Espace des Sciences Pierre-Gilles de Gennes. Starting in September, new students will join the ESPCI and, seeing the success of "Un Labo à la Cité", we believe that the new office will have no trouble convincing a large number of newcomers to join the association. You will find them on September 28th for the European Night of the researchers and at the beginning of October during the Science Festival: do not miss them!