As Halloween is becoming a feast day with more followers in Spain and other European countries, “Physics League” has developed an educative theater play to show the ‘more terrific’ side of Physics in an environment of well-known horror films. The structure of this play and all the experiments were the following:
- A scary introduction. The Joker and Samara (the girl of The Ring), presenters, introduced five Physics students who got lost during a strong storm and discovered an abandoned house. Joker and Samara explained all the experiments performed after each scene is finished.
- Ouija games. The kids were welcomed by the Cheshire cat (performed with luminescent and phosphorescent paintings) who appeared other times during the play. The five kids discovered an Ouija game and they decided to play. The pointer moved alone through a big board (using magnets). Then, a ghost apparition occurred (“Pepper’s ghost” effect with a projector and a certain cloth) and Samara suddenly appeared killing one student.
- Saw room. The four remaining kids entered into the clown’s room of Saw movies. This character played with them using torture instruments but knowing that the students will be safe: bed of nails and walking on broken glass. The clown started to play with her fire tornado and she wanted to burn the hands of a student (without damage by Leidenfrost effect) until other student disturbed this game who was finally murdered.
- Witch room. Two witches were preparing the eternal youth elixir with liquids and eyes (showing different densities) and with the help of a talking mirror (acetate sheet illuminated from behind or in front). The students needed to heal some injuries and asked for help to the witch who decided to kill one student in order to take her soul (dry ice was added to the elixir).
- Laboratory. An “electrical” laboratory was in the show: Doctor Frankenstein, Igor, Joker and Samara played with a faraday cage (radio in an aluminum casing), “creating electricity” with fluorescents and plasma balls, and a Van der Graaff generator. The two remaining students discovered the lab where the Frankenstein’s monster was created using a Tesla coil. The monster killed one student.
- Last murder. The last student found a room with messages written with luminescent paintings. The Cheshire cat appeared and killed the last student.
- Final. All the characters danced “Thriller” by Michael Jackson and gave sweets.
Audience: 300 viewers.
Comment: Other repetitions of this theater play are planned during 2016. We had a great success of public since more than 400 viewers (estimated by the Science Museum staff) waited for more than one hour in a long queue but could not enter in the Auditorium of the Science Museum of Valladolid due to security reasons.
Participants of the Young Minds Valladolid section: Luis Sánchez-Tejerina, Beatriz González, Verónica González, David Mateos, Verónica Villa, Mónica Vara, Laura Ares, Alejandro Gloriani, Diego González. Furthermore, new members of “Physics League” have been involved in this activity. A total of 20 participants coordinated this activity.
Projects: This activity is supported by EPSYM2015H10 project. We have taken advantage of two experiments previously shown in “Game of Physics” project (EPSYM2015G25) and other three shown in “¿Superpoderes…o física?” project (EPSYM2015G25). We had also obtained funding from OSA and APS associations to perform this educative theater play.
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