I can still picture the National Competition: sitting in ETH’s Paul Scherrer lecture hall while one name after another was called for the price ceremony. At some point, mine came up too, along with the announcement that I’d been selected to join a science fair in Brazil. Before that, I haven’t heard of it and first hand to look it up. From that point on I was only looking forward to october. A few months later, I was standing in the security line at Zurich Airport, meeting Hanna Jaeschke for the first time. She had also taken part in the national competition and won the same special prize, so we were headed on this adventure together. After nearly a full day of travelling, we landed near Novo Hamburgo, a small city in southern Brazil.
The organisers greeted us warmly and drove us straight to the exhibition centre, where we set up our stand with the last bit of energy we had left. Jet lag hit hard. After that, we finally made it to the hotel. Communicating with locals turned out to be more difficult than expected. Only a small number of them spoke English, and rather unexpectedly, it was mostly elderly people who knew some German. At the fair, we had translators assigned to us, but outside we were on our own. The competition started the next afternoon. The first visitors arrived, some experts, others students, teachers, or parents. Because our translators changed every half-day, we began each half-day by explaining our project in detail, all over again and really improved our presentation from day to day. During the fair, we presented in English and the translators handled the rest.
What I didn’t expect was how interesting the quiet moments became. When there were no visitors, we talked with the translators themselves. They were our age but came from a completely different cultural background, and those conversations became a really meaningful part of the trip.
I had brought a Swiss mate drink with guarana flavour. The mix was new to them, but mate or chimarrão is incredibly common in that part of Brazil. Many visitors carried the traditional cups and portable hot-water flasks, constantly filling up their cups. We ended up swapping drinks and stories, which was increadibly fun. On the last day, we started early with a bus trip to a nearby town. We visited a few tourist sites and got a better sense of the landscape.
The most memorable part was the drive back, suddenly leaving the town behind and entering a dense jungle that seemed to stretch on forever. That evening was also the award ceremony. The event was beautifully organised, and throughout the week you could feel how excited the local participants were. So many people were involved, and the energy was contagious. To finish off the week, I received fourth place in the Mechanical Engineering category which made me extreamly happy.
The next morning, after a full and intense week, I made myself on the way back to Switzerland. I’m incredibly grateful to the Swiss Youth in Science Foundation, without them I wouldn’t have ended up in this corner of Brazil at all and wouldn’t have had the oportunity to meet so many talented young people from the other side of the world.