IN and OUT

IN

Science and Engineering- after leaving the Big Bang Fair with so many ideas, science and engineering are defiantly IN at the moment.

Women- after International Women’s day reminded us how FAB women are they had to make it in my IN list!

Friends coming home- a good friend of mine has come back from being away and it’s so nice to see her, the girls all hit the town and it was such a fantastic night!

Nails- loving playing around with my nails, and now the screw in kid. This look was achieved with ring binder strengtheners.

Sleep- I think I must be fighting something off, last night I got twelve hours sleep! Can’t remember the last time I got that much sleep!

Writing- it’s so nice to have time to write and be creative, I love blogging more and over the last few weeks have started to get creative again writing plays, prayers and stories.

OUT

Pancakes- after Pancake Day, were now into lent. I love lent, I find it helps to focus me, not just on my faith but on my life, so this year I’m trying to be balanced and healthy.

The gym- having not been to the gym for over 2 weeks I am managing surprisingly well, mind you that hasn’t meant that I haven’t exercised, just not in a gym.

Emails- having reached 500 unread emails on my phone I spent a few hours Saturday night clearing out my inbox on my blackberry. It took a while but it’s great to be up to date. I must add that I read and deal with them on my computer but it doesn’t always re-sync that to my phone. I didn’t have 500 emails that I hadn’t dealt with.

Breaking my laptop- since cracking my laptop screen just over a year ago I get very paranoid about my laptop, also the fashion conscious side of me is fed up of carrying around flight cases, so I got myself a knomo laptop case, they had a few of their bags reduced and I jumped at the chance. They are gorgeous, I love mine.

The Big Bang Fair and a bang of a more dangerous type.

So Friday morning on a crowded train down to London through the’ All Seeing Eye’ that is twitter I found out about the devastating earthquake and tsunami in Japan. The few links and pictures that would load on train just showed the amount of ‘real time’ damage. As the days have gone on we have learnt and seen more, even now as we watch the nuclear power stations, we are reminded of how powerful our planet is.

This video and pictures really affected me:
http://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2011/03/13/world/asia/satellite-photos-japan-before-and-after-tsunami.html?hp?src=ISMR_AP_LO_MST_FB (NYTimes)
http://vimeo.com/20989521 (Jean Labelle)

Images of radiated people having to talk to loved one through glass, it’s like a very bad film. We are all thinking of everyone in Japan.


The reason I was on the crowded train to London, was a very exciting, slightly spur of the moment decision. The 10th, 11th and 12th of March were massive days in the STEM calendar, London’s Excel centre were the hosts of The Big Bang Fair- Launched in 2009, The Big Bang: UK Young Scientists & Engineers Fair is the UK’s biggest single celebration of science and engineering for young people and aims to celebrate and inspire them.

www.thebigbangfair.co.uk

And what an inspiring event it is, like I said it was a last minute decision, having seen the tweets and realising it would be the first time since 2006 (when I myself was Young Engineer for Britain) that I hadn’t attended either the Big Bang Fair or the Young Engineer Awards (as they were formerly) Thursday I bought a train ticket and Friday morning headed down to London. I adore the train journey from Sheffield to London St Pancras, the scenery, the speed, but most of all it’s the stations. I tweeted with @JonatECS about my love for stations and Sheffield (not just because I’m local) and St Pancras are two of my favourites, I could spend hours in St Pancras and the food you can get there is lovely. If you’re passing through you must try Peyton and Byrne Bakery....mmmmm delicious.

Anyway I’m getting sidetracked, so I arrived in London and after topping up my Oyster Card I headed out to the Excel Centre, it’s not a short journey tubes, then the DLR out to the docklands, it was a lovely varied journey.

So just over three hours after I left Sheffield I arrived at the Big Bang Fair and after getting my pass and dumping my coat I headed along to the Young Engineers drinks reception. It was lovely to talk to sponsors, trustees, past winners and of course teachers and students. I always find talking to passionate students and teachers so inspiring, this time it was no different! Some of their projects were so exciting and the best part was that it enthused them too, I know the significance events like this make and it was so nice to be a part of it!

Then having met up with Shawn Brown (UK Young Engineer 2010) and Chris Jefferies (UK Young Scientist 2009) we headed down to watch ‘the bang goes the theory’ live tour. These were the sort of things that made science and engineering fun for me as a child; it was full of bags, flames and Jem’s fantastic inventions. All finished off with ‘the symphony of bang’ it really is quite catchy.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VblqcRvN7-Y

Afterwards we went backstage to say hi to Liz, Dallas and Jem to congratulate them of such a good live show. I must admit I’m very jealous they have such fantastic jobs. We spent most of the afternoon with one of more members of the team as they met fans, filmed bits and discussed the Japanese earthquake. The team had done an earthquake and tsunami episode and were currently sorting out how to add the information about Japan. This special episode was shown yesterday (Monday) so the team had two days to film new bits. They did a really good job and even used some of our ideas. You can watch it here-

www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b00lwxj1

by this time we had been joined by Peter Hadfield (UK Technologist 2009) Tom Hearing (UK Scientist 2010- specialises in Geology) along with Peter Girlfriend we made an interesting group who spend most of the afternoon quizzing Jem about his past and present work. It was really inspiring, and we almost missed the start of the award ceremony.

The Award show was started off with a BANG by the Braniac guys abusing science and the Kate Bellingham and Professor Brian Cox did a fantastic job of presenting all the many awards. All the projects were fantastic and with entrants from all across the UK (even Sheffield) we were surrounded by the best of the best. Read more about Connor Plant our Sheffield entry on MoreFrom’s blog

http://morefrom.blogspot.com/2011/03/young-sheffield-engineers-career-set-to.html

The main two awards are UK Engineer 2011 and UK scientist 2011 and this year Andrew Cowen was out UK Engineer and for the first time a girl, Hannah Eastman, was our UK Scientist! Well Done and love a bit of Girl-Power! See the moment that they won.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ftQ5AURq5Rg

Pictures from the Big Bang Fair are up on there facebook page http://www.facebook.com/TheBigBang4U

Have a look, it really is such an inspiring event, I found this video on you tube and loved it.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=y2Kxecx42r4&feature=youtube_gdata

So I left London that evening to travel back to Sheffield having been enthused, inspired, informed and revitalised and what’s more... I managed it all in heels :)