Since 2008 the Fisika in Moto laboratory has been educating students on how the strict equations of physics they learn at school are applied in motorcycle design. Now for the first time, its guided tours are open to everyone, offered in daily package deals with the Ducati museum and factory visit.
The Fondazione Ducati is a pivotal component of the Italian company, managing a wide array of activities that range from non-profit social and cultural initiatives, to running the Ducati Museum and the School of Restoration. In 2008, its activities spread to include the Fisika in Moto (Motorcycle Physics) lab, an interactive workshop developed with the collaboration of the Malpighi High School of Bologna, designed to bridge the scientific knowledge taught in schools with its real-world applications.
Throughout the first decade of its life, the lab had been accessible only to school groups by appointment, but this is about to change. As of April 28, the lab will open its gates to the public, offering guided two-hour tours every day in both Italian and English.
The Fisika in Moto workshop is situated inside Ducati's historic headquarters in Borgo Panigale, it includes three separate thematic rooms and uses intuitive experiments and group competitions to explain each principle.
The first room introduces the visitors to the Ducati motor and illustrates the physical basis of engine design, then the tour moves to the second room where four experiments investigate the physical mechanisms that govern motorcycle dynamics. The final room is what Ducati calls the MotoGP of Physics and it consists of four interactive workstations that lead the participants to discover how to make a motorcycle go fast.
Visiting the lab still requires booking ahead, but finding open dates shouldn't be that hard, as the schedule includes four tours every Saturday and Sunday during the school season (October to June), and three scheduled tours every working day of the week - except for Wednesdays – from July to September.
Admission to the Fisika in Moto lab is possible only with a ticket to the museum, costing in total €30 (around US$36) per person; adding a factory tour raises the cost up to €45 ($54).
Take a short virtual tour of the lab in the following video.
Source: Ducati
