|
On Wednesday 9th March, in a minibus packed full of equipment, clothes and 11 very excited students, we set off to the “Big Bang” Science Fair in London! We were heading to the fair to present our Silver CREST project, ‘How to make the perfect cup of tea’, to various judges as part of the National CREST competition. With us were the Bronze team (Ella Halcrow, Alice Greenway and Catherine Landers) presenting their project on toothpaste and the Gold CREST engineering team (Charlie Porter, Bethan Dobson, Sarah Parsons and Georgina Flower) with their advanced project on turbine calibration in Power Stations. The journey to the fair took longer than expected as we got caught in heavy traffic but eventually we pulled up outside the Premier Inn which was to be our base for the next four days. We were incredibly lucky as it was right by the exhibition centre. After checking into our rooms, we went to register at the ExCeL centre where we were exhibiting. We each received a bag of goodies on our arrival! There was barely time to set up our stand before we got on the train into London. Here we bought tickets for a show the following evening and ate in a really nice Mexican restaurant. And so our first day came to an end. On Thursday we got up at about 6:30 to get ready and rehearse our presentation one last time. We walked across the car park to the exhibition centre. Here we set up our stall, eyed up the competition and began to talk to people walking round the fair. It should be noted that everyone was incredibly friendly and interested. People both young and old wanted to take part in our tea taste test and ask us about the project. The judges were generally friendly despite their annoying habit of interrupting your carefully planned presentation, and always had a question you hadn’t thought they’d ask! On Thursday evening, we headed back into London to watch Chicago which was amazing! We were really lucky to get great seats from which we could see everything. After our very late night, we had an even earlier start on Friday morning (5:30am!) to be part of a live BBC breakfast broadcast. Mrs Mighall, now our PR manager, had managed to arrange for us to be part of a news item on the “Big Bang” Fair which was broadcast to the whole country! Mrs Mighall had also organised for five members of the group to be interviewed for Woman’s Hour on Radio 4, due to be broadcast this week. After a long search for somewhere quiet, the volunteers were asked questions about women in science. There was more judging on Friday, with one of the judges being Professor Brian Cox! We had the opportunity for us to see Bang Goes the Theory Live! Then, after tense waiting, the time for the awards ceremony arrived. The awards ceremony was livened up by the Brainiac team and their giant Smoke AirZookas, and energetic walk-up music. We were lucky enough to have three prizes awarded to teams from our school. We, the silver team, won the ‘Creativity and Collaboration Prize’, which included an experience prize and £500. The Gold team won the ‘Royal Academy of Engineering’ prize and also came second in the senior engineering competition, which runs across the whole country. They won £1200 and also an experience prize. This is an amazing achievement and reflects just how much work went into their project and how amazing they are! They thoroughly deserve it. We would like to thank Mr Thomas and Mrs Mighall for accompanying us and making a huge effort; both on the trip and while we were completing the projects. They’ve given up a huge amount of time and sleep for us and we couldn’t have done any of it without them. We’d also recommend the CREST scheme to anyone who loves science and being creative. It is an amazing opportunity and although it’s hard work it is also incredibly good fun! By Alex Batchelor, Astrid Blee, Leah Edwards and Lauren Downing, Silver CREST team
|
