Supporting inspiring education
The workshops went really well, we had over 2500 children take part over 10 days. The furthest distance recorded was over 40m, which is well in excess of our previous records. We had a lot of fun and met a lot of other great science communicators.
Our new kits also performed really well, a definite improvement over our last equipment. One of the best bits for me was that by the end I felt I had so much practice in delivering the workshops, they were probably the best I’ve ever done!
We’re off in 2 days to the Abu Dhabi science festival! We’ve totally revamped the fuel cell car workshop with a new kit of parts and a new hydrogen refuelling station.
We’ll be off for 14 days, running 80 workshops for over 2000 kids!
We’ve got another 24 workshops coming up over the next to weeks for SAUCE, and so we’ve taken the opportunity to upgrade the wind tunnel.
I’ve also posted the software for the PC and the microcontroller on my github pages. Thanks to Power Drive Service for rapid delivery of the new PLC!
I’ve been commissioned by the Calthorpe project to build a wind powered phone charging station. The majority or the build will be done on site with a group of young people, over 3 days.
The idea is to do some hands on renewables learning that results in something that’s useful to the garden’s visitors.
For those interested, I’ve posted some of the technical details on openrenewables.org.uk.
I’m pleased to announce the development of a new workshop for climate week! This project is a collaboration with Arcola Energy.
The aim of the workshop is to build a model car and compete with other groups to see who can go the furthest on 5ml of hydrogen. We’ve built a custom refuelling station and laser cut a set of parts for building the cars.
Students will use hot melt glue guns to put the pieces together.Because the workshop is designed to run in under an hour, we’ve given them a good head start by providing a motor, fuel cell, and hydrogen delivery system mounted on a chassis. Longer projects could involve the design and build of these components too.
Our wind turbine workshops are a fantastic exploration of wind power. Students team up and compete to create the best wind turbine blades that they can test in our custom made wind tunnel.
“One of the best workshops I have seen in the last three years” - Teacher at South Camden Community School
We also have classroom resources for use after the wind workshops: wind turbines for teachers (keystage 3)
“The science of snow” is an interactive exhibit that starts by illustrating how snowflakes form and ends with a unique snowflake postcard to take away. The snowflakes can then be used in arts and crafts projects.
The aim of the exhibit is to expose the beauty of nature, leads to greater appreciation and understanding. Everyone knows that snowflakes are unique – but why? By growing your own snowflake, manipulating the modelled environmental conditions; it becomes obvious that each snowflake is different because each travels through differing environmental conditions.
If you’re interested in having the exhibit at your school for a day, please get in contact with me at matt
I’m pleased to announce a partnership with the Arcola Theatre in Dalston London!
We started working together on the SAUCE project, which worked so well that we’re now developing another 2 sustainability focused workshops to local schools in Hackney.
The 2 new workshops are going to be:
I’m looking for a school to be a partner in bringing my ‘near space’ project to reality!
We’d need to raise about £1000 and have about 12 children between 12 and 16 to work with for 30 hours. All the details are in the near space proposal.
A frequent challenge I have with creative workshops is getting over the “I can’t do it” mentality, or the “blank slate fear”.
In my latest graffiti stencil workshop I tested a new piece of software that makes self portraits easier and less scary.
The participant uses a wiimote and a webcam to create a high contrast image of themselves. This is projected onto a wall which they can then trace onto a board. Using temporary stencils they can then create great images of themselves!
We got some fantastic results!