UKSEDS Outreach: March/June Updates.

UKSEDS participated in the Big Bang Fairs and school festival. As a part of outreach programme, our stand for these events consists for space activities such as identifying meteorites from the earth rocks, display and description of our model rocket and telescope, space game called Space Invaders played using the keyboard interface created by SpaceGambit, and sumo wrestling rovers, donated by RAL Space. Following are the details of the March and June outreach events:

1. Science In Your World- Oxfordshire Science Festival Launch Event (8 March 2014):

Volunteers – Jasmine Michalowska, Angaraj Duara, Samiksha Mestry, Jeremy Nickless. 2014 was another bumper year for Oxfordshire Science Festival.  Between 7th-23rd March, 34,000 people attended OSF events all over the county (Copyright © 2014 Oxfordshire Science Festival – Newsletter, Summer 2014) The Big Bang Fair, the NEC (13^th  – 16^th March 2014):

Volunteers – Maggie Lieu, Samiksha Mestry, Sarah Douglas, Robert Sandford, Jeremy Nickless, a few volunteers from the Big Bang team.

The Big Bang Fair 2014 saw a record-breaking 75,000 visitors over 4 days, attend with all ages having a great time. We’re happy to report that 93% described very good or good. Over half the key age-group of 11-14 year-olds learnt a lot, two thirds of young attendees took the opportunity to speak to someone about careers and more than seven out of ten knew where to go next for more information. (Website – http://www.thebigbangfair.co.uk/About_Us/)

The Market Bosworth School Outreach (20^th March 2014):

Volunteers –Robert Sandford and Sam Brocksopp On Thursday 20^th March, we went to the Market Bosworth School in Leicestershire to take part in the #TMBSYear5ScienceFairs. We presented to five classes from year 7 to year 9, talking about rocket science and exciting developments in spaceflight, as well as various UKSEDS projects involving rocketry, spaceflight and high-altitude ballooning. The pupils also got to try their hands at winning a robotic sumo-wrestling match between a remote-controlled Zumo robot and an autonomous one, which they thoroughly enjoyed. Many of the children were very enthusiastic, asking questions about subjects from space tourism to rovers to extraterrestrial toilets! It was great to inspire so many young people to find out more about space.

Thank you to the organisers for putting the event together and inviting us. As always, there will be more outreach events in the future, so get in touch if you’re interested in helping out! Credit: Rob Sandford.

Jimmy’s Farm Science and Nature Festival, Sussex (23^rd March 2014):

Volunteers – Samiksha Mestry and Jeremy Nickless Website – http://jimmysfarm.com/event/science-nature-festival/

5. The Big Bang Fair West Midlands, Ricoh Arena, Coventry (24^th June 2014):

Supervised by Assistant Outreach Officer Angaraj Duara Volunteer – Tomas Holesinsky (students of Leicester Uni)

6. The Big Bang Fair South West, Exeter University (26^th June 2014):

Volunteers– Samiksha Mestry and Jeremy Nickless

7. The Big Bang Fair South East, the South of England Showground, West Sussex (1^st July 2014):

Volunteers– Samiksha Mestry and Jeremy Nickless

8. The Big Bang Fair London, Alexandra Palace (8^th July 2014):

Volunteers– Samiksha Mestry, Teejay (our projects officer), Jeremy Nickless.

9. The Big Bang Fair East Midlands, The Roundhouse, Derby (10^th July 2014):

Supervised by Jeremy Nickless, Sarah Douglas, our Assistant Outreach Officer and our PR officer Eliot Fisher. Once again, a big thank you to all our volunteers, we hope you enjoyed the experience and spread the word about our amazing outreach work to your fellow students. We need many more volunteers to get involved at future events. See our advertisement for volunteers at Loncon3 for more details.

If you would like us to come to your school/festivals or volunteer with us, then drop an email to our Outreach Officer.

For more articles and news about UKSEDS Outreach, watch this space!

Yours Sincerely, Samiksha Mestry

UKSEDS Outreach Officer.