King's Day 2018 in Groningen

Martinikerkhof

Dancing with robots

Professor Ming Cao (Science and Enginering) knows everything there is to know about robots. He can make the machines dance together without them stepping on each other’s toes. Or rather, each other’s wheels. Coa’s robots are small car-like machines that react to each other through sensors, which means they don’t bump into each other and stay in formation.

The robots will be dancing together with students from the Eexter primary school in Scheemda. Hopefully, they’ll encourage princesses Amalia, Alexia, and Ariane to join the robots. With no collisions, and in formation, of course.

Academy square

Student top athletes

After walking across the Grote Markt, the royals will arrive at the corner of the Oude Boteringestraat and the Academy square. In front of Mr. Mofongo, they will be welcomed by Lieke Knip of the KEI board.

She will lead the royal visitors past Groningen student top athletes and students with an A level status at the RUG, Hanze University of Applied Sciences, and the Noorderpoort and Alfa colleges.

Mini-lecture by Ben Feringa

In front of the UB, facing the Academy building stairs, the royal family will sit down on a small podium. Willem-Alexander and Máxima and the millions of compatriots watching with them will be treated to a five-minute mini-lecture by RUG Nobel Prize winner Ben Feringa and his team of researchers.

Feringa will of course be talking about the discovery that won him the Nobel Prize in 2016: nano-technology, small ‘cars’ the size of molecule.

Feringa and his team made a short introductory video, which is available on Twitter:

#MijnGroningen van prof. Ben Feringa is eigenlijk #OnsGroningen. Met zijn internationale onderzoeksgroep doet hij baanbrekend scheikundig onderzoek in de labs van de #RUG op Zernike. Op #Koningsdag2018 maakt heel Nederland kennis met nanoscience! #sliminternationaal pic.twitter.com/9XXrwnaJrr

— University Groningen (@univgroningen) 11 april 2018

After the mini-lecture, several hundreds of students will organise an academic surprise.

Oude Kijk in ‘t Jatstraat

Het gras van…

The royal pair will says goodbye to Lieke Knip on the corner of the Oude Kijk in ‘t Jatstraat, after which a selection of Groningen student association members will welcome them.

The students will sing the visitors a special Groningen song: Geen Frankrijk, laat staan Kameroen, doe mij maar het gras, het gras van het Noorderplantsoen (No France or Cameroon, I’d rather have the grass of the Noorderplantsoen). The renowned and sentimental Het gras van het Noorderplantsoen, by Ralf Poelman. Want to sing along but don’t know the lyrics? You can practise by watching.

Kromme Elleboog

Café Soestdijk

A pub visit isn’t part of the official programme, but informed sources tell us that at least part of the royal retinue will pop into gastropub Café Soestdijk at the Grote Kromme Elleboog.

Princes Maurits and Bernhard jr. used to work at this pub in the nineties. It is also where Maurits met colleage Marilène van den Broek, daughter of former foreign minister Hans van den Broek. And the rest is history…

Harmonie square

Kennis is Koning!

Willem-Alexander and Máxima will have reached the Vismarkt, the end of their tour, at 2 p.m. At that moment, the event Knowledge is King! will start at the Harmony square. The event has been organised by the Young Academy, ScienceLinX and the RUG Scholierenacademie.

At this event, you can participate in all kinds of exciting experiments, such as ‘Sugar, what is it?’, ‘Healthy organs for ill people’, and ‘How was the universe created?’