A few months ago I had written about being accepted as one of the EPSRC NOISEmakers. Following the introductory meeting we had received a list of training courses which were available for us to follow. The first one I will be attending was yesterday: Science Busking.
The training was given by David Price from Science Made Simple. I arrived just on the dot of 10am and found most of the others already there. David was busy discussing with the other participants. I must admit it took me a while to get used to his accent (I am so never around any native English speakers that I still struggling for the first few seconds to understand a heavily accented English speaker!)
‘What is science busking?’ was one of the first questions which passed through my head. As its name implies, it consists of busking routines with science as their basis. As was written in the information e-mail we had received, it “takes live demonstrations and interpretations to people who may never have thought of stepping foot in a science centre or museum”.
Following the brief introduction, we soon got stuck into the thick of it. Throughout the day we made a glovaphone, learned how to make flying cups, filmed ourselves ‘mystery busking’, and in total were exposed to over 20 science busking demonstrations. My favourite demo? Probably the vortex bottles:
We then ended the day actually busking on the streets of London! The plan was that we busk to each other in groups, but another meeting was going on so off to the streets we went!
As I have hinted previously, I find that the most useful courses and workshops are the ones where you really get stuck in and do stuff. On this point this workshop definitely succeeded! I am being extremely picky in fact in finding something negative to say! But if I had to it would have to be that I would have liked a bit more constructive criticism…I found the criticism a bit too positive…but maybe we were that good then 😉
Looking forward to the next NOISE courses…and of course to getting stuck into activities through NOISE!
Filed under: Events and Activities, Public Engagement, constructive criticism, David Price, EPSRC, flying cups, glovaphone, NOISE, NOISE workshops, NOISEmakers, science busking, Science Made Simple, spinning cups, vortex bottles
