In Conversation with Marcus Coates

I had the priviledge of volunteering on the first day of this years festival at this event. Thursday 23rd October, In Conversation with Marcus Coates and Geoff Sample. This event took place at MOSI at 7pm. I arrived straight from work  at 5.45pm as the others were getting their briefing. Our new coordinator/manager, the lovely Nichola asked me if I also do evaluations too. Never done it before so this is an opportunity to do something new. This mean't asking patrons to fill in a survey and also logging those who refused to. Doors opened at 6.30pm so myself and 2 other lovely volunteers whom I'd met at our induction course stood near the doors. There was a meet and greet, and a fellow evaluator using a tablet. I had a clipboard doing it the old fashioned way. People were very nice and this made it more fun than I thought. The time went quickly and soon we were seated to watch the event. It was interesting to hear about their careers and how they met and began their collaborations. Marcus Coates is an acclaimed artist who currently has an installation at MOSI called 'The Sounds Of Others' which is essentially what this talk was about. Geoff Sample is a Wildlife sound recordist and these 2 guys clearly love their work. They have spent many many hours listening to hundreds of different animal sounds! We were treat to some of them. Marcus started with a recording of himself saying 'hi' then altering its frequency and it became so distorted that it sounded like an array of wild animals, finally like some sort of bear.Very Funny! He continued doing this throughout the talk and the blue whale got mentioned quite a few times. Apparently their sounds are out of the range of human hearing. The Q&A at the end was fun especially as people asked questions about sounds which aim to mimic animal sounds rather than real animal sounds such as the pelican crossing! The audience were then lead to the 1830's warehouse with Marcus and Geoff to see and discuss the installation. We stood near the MOSI main doors ready to hand out flyers to  the patrons as they left. It was all over at 8.45pm and we went home. I hope to see this installation some time later in the festival week.

    






















I will be back to tell you about the Science Spectacular show I volunteered at on Saturday 25th October. This was a fabulous all day event at Manchester Museum and Whitworth Hall. As if that wasn't enough I then went to a book reading at Blackwells :D Why don't you leave me a comment telling me about any festival events you've been to or volunteered at so far? I'd love if if you did.
Sarah xxx

Festival Garb

Here I am at home all dressed up in my new festival t-shirt, badges etc. You can't see that this years shirt is actually a vibrant blue and I'm sorry about the light glare. I'll get a better photo from the festival :D

Here is a pic of my ID and lanyard. I have to give it back when the festival is over but I can keep the t-shirt. Now you know what I look like, you can come up and say hi :)

And so it begins...

The Manchester Science Festival that is...it starts today! :D Here is a link to the website so you can have alook and plan your visits. There is so much going on and many more venues have been added this year too.

http://www.manchestersciencefestival.com/

I an a volunteer (STEM Ambassador) for the festival and my first gig is this evening at MOSI (Museum of Science and Industry) itself. Can't wait! (Looking forward to see what colour our t-shirts are as well). I am volunteering at 'A conversation with Marcus Coates' who is a renowned artist currently with an installation at MOSI. Excited to be learning about that and how different sounds species make works! Here is a link to this event in case you are free and wnat to pop along and see it. Please do say hello if you see me

http://www.manchestersciencefestival.com/whatson/msf14conversationmarcuscoates

My next event is all day Saturday at the university and Whitworth Hall. 'Science spectacular' which has something for all the family and will be alot of fun! Here is a link

 http://www.manchestersciencefestival.com/whatson/msf14sciencespectacular

Once again if you visit and see me do come over for a chat. I love the science festival and when I'm not volunteering I am planning what events I will be attending myself. Hope to see you there :D

Sarah

Robin Ince is (in and) out of his mind.

Last friday, just 2 nights ago I attended the titular named event at out beloved MOSI (Museum of Science and Industry. It was hilarious and everybody laughed from start to finish. In case you've spent the last decade under a rock, Robin Ince is a comedian who loves science and co-hosts a popular Radio 4 show called the Infinite Monkey Cage which I love and can't recommend highly enough for science lovers. This is the 3rd time I have seen him live but anyway. I had my camera but as he got so into his chatter he did in fact forget to show us his slides though he did flash through them at he end when he realised. Love this mans mania. I did arrive incredibly early and bought a rather tasty glass of red wine and took a seat in the third row and got to see Robin Ince setting up. Needing something to entertain myself with I did snap these :)

On his knees there having technical hitches. Anyway, there was an interval but this event was time well spent. From 8pm to 10pm. He gave us stories from his life and work. Mentioning his radio show several times and doing impressions of Prof Brian Cox, his mancunian Monkey Cage partner in crime. Also impressions of Brian Blessed after asking a couple of kids in the second row if they minded swearing.Naturally they didn't!He talked about his admiration for Richard Feynman and showed us the famous YouTube video of Feynman playing the bongo's days before his death. He told us about making a speech at this dads 80th birthday and a bottle of cheap champagne exploding and covering him in booze and glass. He told us a recent tale of witnessing a certain Nobel prize winner (Sir Paul Nurse) struggling to open a taxi door. I did learn something though. I am now aware of a curious sea creature I had never seen nor heard of before and I want to share this with you. Please say hello to the piglet squid.

It has a certain cuteness don't you think? I wonder if anybody has or could make a piglet squid balloon animal? I'd definitely love to see that! If you get the chance to see this man live then do it. He always seems to have one tour or another happening. Next I will be attending TEDxSalford on Sunday 5th October at the Lowry Centre. I absolutely LOVE TED! Robin Ince is speaking at this event also and I think thre are some tickets left. Catch you later, take care xxx

Rare Richard Dawkins interview!

Yes another Richard Dawkins so soon. I love him and stumbled across this rare 1 hour interview whilst surfing YouTube. this is fascinating so i thought i would post it for you to watch. i hope you enjoy it and find it thought provoking. It includes religion, alternative medicine.

Science needs women

I have seen this video before and absolutely love it! It is so inspiring I just had to share it on my blog and I will watch it again myself in future. I hope you enjoy it as much as I do.  It is sad and unfortunate and rather worrying that in 2014 there is still a lack of women in science and a lack of women being promoted to higher roles within science.

Intuition!

From University of Nottingham.