Researchers' Night 2025 at JYU: Lights, Shadows and Technology

For this year's Researchers' Night our Innovative Learning Environments research group focused on lights and shadows which was a fitting theme for ongoing annual City of Light event as well. The workshops opened with the STEXperiments E+ project RGB light diffraction workshop, where students were able to unleash their creativity and see for themselves how their own crafts threw shadows on the wall in darkened corridor, and how RGB-lights gave different colors to shadows itself.

Published

17.10.2025

Ville Kuusisto

This year, our researchers' from the Innovative Learning Environments research group organised a total of three ongoing workshops with more than a hundred school participants! The RGB-workshop was a part of the STEXperiments E+ project's many real scientific experiments that you can do in your school in person and online! For more information on the project, please see: https://stexperiments.pedf.cuni.cz/about-the-project/

In addition to lights and shadows, technology and its possibilities were presented. Students were able to get their hands on AI and create their own speaking characters from scratch – whether it was a war speech from a viking raider, encouraging words from a princess or motivational speech from a soldier.

During the evening the main focus point were on project Steamcraft. This international project gives a little twist to famous videogame Minecraft. This modded version of the game challenges players to think through their actions in the form of pollution: if they wish to use coal-powered furnaces to progress in the game, they must also get rid of the pollution the furnaces cause – or make their own game world unhabitable. The STEAMcraft Erasmus+ project dives into the intricacies of renewable energy and smart city development through a Minecraft game modification. More information: https://www.steamcraft.eu/about-the-project

Through these workshops students and adults alike were able to observe and participate in diverse lessons and topics that are part of the everyday life. With virtual and ”real-life” phenomena the participants have seen the glimpse of possibilities and dangers that are among us – and realised they can affect the world around them in different ways!

Thank you for being a part of this magical event! Our was once again delighted to be able to bring joy to the darkening evenings of Jyväskylä! See the videos below for impressions from the event!