• Question: Why do most of you want to use the money if you win to make videos? Are people going to be interested in it?

    Asked by flexy to Alastair, Emma, Hywel, Keith, Vicki on 17 Jun 2010 in Categories: .
    • Photo: Hywel Vaughan

      Hywel Vaughan answered on 17 Jun 2010:

      It is odd how we all are choosing to make videos flexy!
      Personally I want to make videos that show progress on a regular basis. You don’t have to wait until we appear on the news to find out what is happening! I also want to set up webcasts so that you get to ask questions live – rather like this – so that everyone can be involved. We want to make this project as accessible as possible, and I think that is something that has never been done before with a major engineering project. 🙂

    • Photo: Alastair Sloan

      Alastair Sloan answered on 17 Jun 2010:

      Hi Flexy

      At the moment only people in my department or people who are working specifically in my area of research get to see what we are doing / have done, but its the public who will benefit and, when you think about who funds my work, the public who pay for it. I think they deserved the opportunity to see what we are doing, be able to understand what we are doing and why and have the chance to respond with their views. Also, I want to encourage students at school to see what science in the working world is doing – see some experiments that nobody has done before rather than just being involved in your GCSE or A level science. I think people would be interested if they had the opportunity to see what we were doing and give them the chance to voice their opinion

    • Photo: Vicki Stevenson

      Vicki Stevenson answered on 17 Jun 2010:

      I’ve heard it said before that physics is a communicable disease – when you understand physics and realise how fascinating it is you want to share that understanding with as many people as possible!

      I think that some people who are already interested in science will be interested in the videos. I think that in my particular case the fact that they’re made by school students will be particularly appealing to other school students – it will be someone they trust saying “this is interesting!” instead of an adult trying to tell them what to think.

    • Photo: Keith Brain

      Keith Brain answered on 17 Jun 2010:

      No video for me. However, a good question about “are schools going to be interested” in our web site. My University already has a schools outreach program, and so we can add this into our local schools advertising. My music collaborator will also be able to do the same through the Royal College of Music. It will also be very useful for us to liaise with the “I’m a Scientist” team for their advice; we’ve already seen some of the reports on the pilots for this project, and that has given us strong ideas.

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