• Question: why do you think you should get the money and what would you spend it on?

    Asked by simsylad to Alastair, Emma, Hywel, Keith, Vicki on 18 Jun 2010 in Categories: .
    • Photo: Keith Brain

      Keith Brain answered on 18 Jun 2010:

      I spend it on upgrading our upcoming web site that looks to fuse science and music – explaining some of the ideas about our scientific work through music. At the moment, the plans are quite adult-focused, but I’d like to make it more accessible to schools.

      Why me? (a) I think its an interesting project that hasn’t been done before, as far as I’m aware (a bit of this has been done with Astrophysics, Mathematics and some brain science; but not with body-brain interactions). (b) I’m not spending it on hardware 😉

    • Photo: Alastair Sloan

      Alastair Sloan answered on 18 Jun 2010:

      Hi Simsylad

      I don’ think I should get the money but I hope I do because I want to get people more involved in my research and having a say in it. It’s down to you to decide. Full details on what I would spend it on are with my CV but briefly I want to purchase a videocam and media software to create webisodes explaining our research to the public so they know what we are doing and can feedback to us and have a say in our research

    • Photo: Vicki Stevenson

      Vicki Stevenson answered on 18 Jun 2010:

      I hope I’ll get the money because I specifically try to encourage school students to look at science and make up their own mind whether it’s interesting or not.

      A lot of people don’t really know what scientists do – they often assume that all scientists permanently wear lab coats and never come out of laboratories! TV makes the situation even worse because scientists in films are always about to blow up the world (either because they want to or because they’ve made a huge mistake!). These sort of ideas put people off science subjects without ever finding out the types of jobs they’ll be missing!
      I’m one of the organisers of “Discover!” which is a Saturday club running activities and visits to places like Aberthaw power station and British Airways Maintenance Centre! One of the activities I help out in is helping students to obtain images from beautiful mineral samples like calcite, quartz and even meterorite! Each of the students receives a t-shirt with an image they designed themselves! We work with Professor Richard Weston who developed the technique and is now selling material printed from his own images to Liberty of London! I’ve uploaded the image I had on my t-shirt this year! Other activities include building a prosthetic hand and using facilities in Cardiff which control a telescope in Hawaii!
      Unfortunately this club can only take 30 people at a time – I’d like to buy 2 video cameras so that the students who attend the club can make a film about their experiences which will be available on the web for people who can’t come in person!

Comments