Today, Saturday 1.11.14 is my last day as a volunteer this year. I enjoyed it very much but felt abit sad as I can't believe it is over already! I was at MOSI for the day from 9am to 4.30pm doing a workshop 'Call of The wild' with renowned wildlife sounds recordist Geoff Sample. My first festival event last week was a conversation with him and Marcus Coates. Always nice to get up close and personal and chat with the researchers and Geoff is such an amiable chap.
This event started at 11am after a few technical hitches. I was to work with another volunteer on this all day whose name escapes me. He is a biomedical student.Not doing too well with names this year but hopefully I will find them out tomorrow night :) He is lovely anyway. We greeted the visitors and I had a list of names so I could tick them off. This is a popular event and after seeing it I can telly why.Such a pity that on both occasions there were empty seats even though it had been fully booked.
Geoff started off by setting the scene by giving us sounds of various location types and asking us what they were. They included the seaside, a forest and a waterfall. Next he played us various animal sounds and we had to guess what they were. They started off easy e.g cuckoo, crickets then proceeded to become a bit tricky and then became hard. I managed to get some photos when he revealed the answers and there are some creatures I'd never even heard of which I plan to look up, such as the Mole cricket and a bird called the Nightjar. So thanks Geoff for teaching me a few things about the animal kingdom. Anyway here are some photo's.
Please click on the photo's to embiggen.
The final part of this event required volunteers from the audience and the kids were more than happy to oblige. Some adults too! They made noises or said words into a microphone which Geoff then edited and altered the speed of using some software. This aspect does take some time. It was fun how he changed peoples voices or words to sound like an animals. He explained that this can be done at home as there is free software and all you need is a microphone. This is a long but lovely event which takes time but after lunch it was repeated again. My colleague actually volunteered to have his voice recorded. We helped Geoff pack his things into his car afterwards and it was a nice chance to talk to him. He told us he was about to start writing a new book, so if you're interested, that is definitely something to look out for! So the science festival is all over already. Of course tomorrow is the last day and there is still plenty to see at venues all over Manchester.
http://www.manchestersciencefestival.com/whatson/guide/default.aspx?view=all&d=2+Nov+2014
I am really looking forward to the evening event Comedy In Space with Chella Quint. This is also a thank you party for we volunteers. We are promised drinks vouchers and all the flying saucers we can eat! I am of course looking forward to meeting up with fellow volunteers again and having a good chat and a few laughs. If you are there, say hello! I also look forward to volunteering again next year. If they will have me.
http://www.manchestersciencefestival.com/whatson/msf14comedyinspace
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