Ever wondered what some of the biggest experiments and projects are in STEAM? We’ve compiled a list of 5 below for you to get inspired by!
- The Large Hadron Collider (LHC). The LHC is currently the biggest particle accelerator in the world! It lives at CERN (The European Organisation for Nuclear Research) in Switzerland, and is nearly 17 miles long. Put simply, its job is to accelerate particles such as protons to really high speeds so that they can collide, and then we can use these results to understand more about the particles and building blocks of our universe.
- Frontier. Frontier is one of the biggest supercomputers in the world, as well as the world’s first exascale computer! What is an exascale computer, you might ask? Well, it is essentially a computer that can compute calculations really fast, like 1 quadrillion a second. This is also what makes it a supercomputer! You can find Frontier at the Oak Ridge National Laboratory in Tennessee. When it was created in 2022, it was 5 times faster than the other supercomputers, and it uses almost 150,000 metres of cable! Find out more about Frontier here >>
- The Gran Telescopio Canarias (GTC) is the biggest optical telescope in the world! It can be found in the Roque de los Muchachos Observatory, in La Palma, Spain. In 2007, it made its first observation and since then it has discovered the most densely populated galaxy cluster in the universe (in 2021). It has an aperture of 10.4 metres, much bigger than other telescopes, which means it can absorb faint light and make more discoveries.
- Mauna Kea Observatories. Whilst Spain might have the largest telescope, Hawaii has the largest (and most famous) observatory in the world! The telescopes in this observatory are operated by people from all over the world. It is such a great space for an observatory as it sits on top of a highly elevated area that has very dark night skies. So much research happens here because of these features, and it’s approximately 30 miles wide!
- Mononofu the robot. Mononofu is the largest humanoid robot in the world according to the Guinness Book of Records, and is 28 feet tall. It was designed by an engineer at Sakakibara Kikai in Japan, and is currently too tall to leave its warehouse! The robot is also able to be controlled, with its specialist skill being that it can shoot foam balls at a massive speed of 87 miles per hour.
Did you have a favourite? Was there one that we missed? STEAM is changing every day, so we don’t think this list will stay this way forever; that’s what makes these fields so beautiful.
