This weekend has been the British Science Festival. It apparently moves from city to city each year and for some reason this year it was actually in Bradford. That has meant that in Bradford this weekend and until about Thursday/Friday there is lots of science type activities happening, including the Bang Goes the Theory roadshow. I was lucky enough to get tickets to see the live show in the theatre, which was actually free to get. In fact I managed to get 2 lots of tickets.
So this weekend for Little Chick and I has been all about Science. Little Chick loves Science, it is his best subject at school, next to Reading. He will sit and read different science books, and does amaze me with some of the stuff he knows. This also means he is a fan of Bang Goes the Theory. I can’t actually say I had really seen the show before. As well as the theatre show the Bang Goes the Theory team had a big tent up in the centre of town with science activities and demonstrations all going on as well, but onto our weekend around science. 🙂
We heading into town and found out that the tent wasn’t open until 11am, but also learned that there was stuff happening up at the university, so we walked up to the university to see what was happening up there. We only ended up in one part of the university so didn’t even see half of the stuff going on, but what was going on this part was great. We first up met a Dodo and Charlies Darwin. While Little Chick sat on the egg they sang to us a son called five, relating to the idea that birds, whales, bats, etc all have five digits etc, so are we related?
Getting sung to by the Dodo and Charles Darwin
Little Chick was then interested in looking at the tissue regenix stand. This part of the university was just lots of different stands showing some of the research that they doing at the university and I think also some companies trying to get you to buy their stuff if you know what I mean. That said most of it was just right for Alex.
We had a look at the stand from the guy who makes all the pipes for musical instruments ranging from 32 foot pipes for organs, to teeny tiny pipes for Oboes, which then led us onto the stand about how the pipes work.
Little Chick then got himself a camel off a stand from a Saudi Arabian company that had some mind game challenges, you know the type, move the stack of wooden rings from one post to the third one one at a time etc etc. Supposed to do it in a minute to get the camel but Little Chick had never seen it before so took him 2 and a half minutes.
Next stand that Little Chick was interested in had things like red cabbage indicator, non-newtonian liquid, which Little Chick wouldn’t play with, so he made me put my hand in it and then punch it. Also seeing which different coloured custard would taste the sweetest. I couldn’t tell, but apparently as you get older your sense of taste does change as well anyway.
The next stand I actually found really interesting and would have liked to talk to the man on the stand for longer. He does research with 8-9 year old children investigating the effects of pollutions on lungs. He goes into schools and talks to children about their lungs, gets them to some activities which are fun, to get them thinking about their lungs as well as some test. I wanted to ask him about asthma and salicylates etc, which might have gone all off on a tangent, but I was intrigued. Unfortunately he ended up getting dragged off while we doing one of the activities that he does in schools. It was blow ink painting. Put drops of ink on paper and blow it with a straw. This activity they like to do because it gets children thinking about their lungs, but it also shows what the lungs look like, big thick tubes to begin with, getting smaller and smaller.
It was then time for us to head back down to the theatre to queue up to watch the show. The queue was long, although we were lucky that we weren’t right at the back of the queue we were closer to the front so were only sat about 4 rows from the front. 🙂 Unfortunately I don’t have any pictures of this show as my camera has now given up the ghost. 😦
It was briliant though. We had pear drop glue, vaccum gloves, burning methane bubbles (a fart in a bath), a big pop test done with a balloon so instead of a soft pop it went BANG!!! Birthday Bingo and a chance to go into space. All done in away that the children all clearly enjoyed, at the same time explaining the science behind it. I now know how to make the vaccum gloves, pear drop glue and a glue from ping pong balls!
After the show we went back to the tent area. We then took part in some of the experiments down there including making rockets out of film canisters, water and alka-selzers, hydrogen rockets. Children had been making their own hovercrafts as well and there was a hovercraft race as well. During this time as well the presenters from the show were walking around talking to people and giving out autographs. We managed to get 2 of the autographs at this time. I got some photos of this, but on my phone (which I have to figure out how to get off phone onto the computer). Anyway, we knew we hadn’t done everything so had to go back.
So today (Sunday), we went back down to the Big Bang Tent, aim to get the other 2 autographs. Dr Wong was actually doing some experiments with the children so we ended up watching those, and got sprayed with water. We already had Dr Wong’s autograph so we were on the look out for Dallas and Jem the 2 missing presenters from our autograph hunt. We spied Dallas and off we rushed to get his autograph. He also performed a magic trick with a red hanky which he then pulled from Little Chick’s t-shirt.
Then Jem appeared by his vaccum elevator. This was a big tube hanging off a JCB with like a giant cork which you hold to as the vaccum cleaner lifts you up. (OK 4 cheap vaccum cleaners). Then they turn it off and you slower come back down to earth. Little Chick wanted me to do and I did it…eeekkk…for those of you who know me, will also know that I am not KEEN on heights at all. The things you do so your children think you are great and brave! I did squeal a little bit and Jem did yell up to me to check I was still holding on…which was a slightly silly question because if I wasn’t holding on I would have been falling onto his head. After this experience he did sign Little Chicks autograph card with ‘your mum is ace.’ 🙂
We never did get back up the university so still loads we didn’t do or see, but what we did was great. I don’t think it was advertised as well as it should have been. It is going to be on for the week, and I like Little Chick’s school isn’t going to do anything, and the school I am working in isn’t doing anything either.
Really enjoyed the weekend spending it with Little Chick, just me and my boy. Tired now though. 🙂
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