Visit to RRCAT

Dr. Dilip Devidas Bhawalkar an Indian optical physicist is the founder

director of the Centre for Advanced Technology (CAT) later renamed as
Raja Ramanna Centre for Advanced Technology (RRCAT).On February
19, 1984 the President of India, Gyani Zail Singh, laid the foundation
stone of the centre. Construction of laboratories and houses began in May
1984. In June 1986, the first batch of scientists from BARC, Mumbai,
moved to RRCAT and scientific activities were started.

RRCAT's motto is “राष्ट्र की सेवा में परमाण”ु i.e. “Atoms in the Service of
Nation” and true to its motto, RRCAT has always inspired the students and
young researchers to learn about sources, behaviours and applications of
atoms.

The RRCAT campus is spread over a 760 hectare picturesque site on the
outskirts of Indore city. The campus encompasses laboratories, staff
housing colony and other basic amenities like school, sports facilities,
shopping complex, gardens etc.

Dr APJ Abdul Kalam said that Learning gives creativity, Creativity leads
to thinking, Thinking provides knowledge and Knowledge makes you
great, and RRCAT gave us the golden opportunity to visit its campus and
expand our learning.

On our visit to RRCAT on 24 th February, We learned about how science

and technology are a part of our everyday life and even such simple
machines have deep scientific concepts behind them. We saw different
Experiments having different scientific facts and theorems like the
travelling of photons and the effects of superconductive elements, and
everything was explained to us in detail making sure that the concept was
clear.
We visited different departments such as
● The laser department where the uses of lasers and its
applications(like laser cutting) were shown and taught to us with
precise details.
● The Cryogenics department where we saw various experiments and
got to know different facts related to liquid nitrogen, the fact that left
us in astonishment was that the temperature of liquid nitrogen is
nearly -196 ° C.
● The Department of 3D printing gave us the knowledge of the 2 ways
of 3D printing- Directed Energy deposition and Powder Bed Fusion.
● The melting and bending of glass to form different laboratory
instruments such as burette, pipette and much more was our next
point of knowledge. They made a glass duck in front of us which
was as beautiful as the map of India they cut in the laser cutting
model.
● Last was the fire department which was absolute fun.That
department was about our safety in fire emergencies. We learnt
about the different uses of different types of fire extinguishers. We
also saw the costumes firefighters wear and the oxygen cylinder they
carry during the firefight. The total weight they carry is
approximately 48 kg(costume weighs 35 kg and the oxygen cylinder
weighs approximately 12.5 kg).We saw the practical use of foam
extinguishers and the Water jet used to extinguish fire which made a
rainbow appear which was even more beautiful . We were shown
different types of water jets and were left to have fun in the water. It
made a double rainbow this time.

Our visit to RRCAT was filled with fun learning. We were delighted to
learn new things and have an equal amount of fun exploring things and
expanding our imagination and knowledge. We are glad we had this
opportunity to come out of our comfort zone and learn the magic of
science in our life.