The Big Bang Science Fair 2015

I originally wrote this post for the UK Home Ed Conference website. Visit the site here.

The Big Bang Fair has become annual event at the NEC Birmingham, and as home educators we can attend on the 'schools only' days (as well as the family day on the Saturday). Here is our family report from the NEC from Friday (schools only day) and Saturday (family day).

On the Friday, we arrived at the fair at 10am and had to queue up with hundreds of school children from all over (there were minibuses from Wales, London, Manchester and other places). It was very different on the Saturday when there were a lot of families around too.

Some of the things we saw and did at the show were amazing. Here are some of them:

Antibiotic Hunters (more info and a great video here)

There were what seemed like hundreds of stands, and the first one we visited was a stall that taught us how scientists are learning from leafcutter ants about how antibiotics work. The exhibitor asked us what we thought the ants were feeding on.  Jay said he thought it was the leaves.  But he was wrong.  The ants collect leaves to feed the fungus that was in the dish.  The ants then feed off of the fungus.  They showed us a separate petri dish and asked us what it smelled of.... it smelled of wet soil and he explained it was the bacteria within the soil that had antibiotic properties.  When the ants travel through the soil, their bodies collect the bacteria and take it back to the fungus which keeps it cleansed and healthy for them to feed on.  They explained that by studying ants, we can learn a lot about making naturally occurring antibiotics.

How crystals formed from lysozyme

We grew some crystals from lysozyme, which is a protein found in tears (it prevents conjunctivitis) and egg white. The crystals grew under a microscope right before our eyes! It was very quick.

Van der graff generator

We saw how a Van der Graff generator works to produce static electricity and hooked up a bowl with some metallic strips on it to the generator. It made some of the metallic strips positively charged, and some stayed neutral. A metallic ping pong ball was placed in the bowl, and it was attracted to a positively charged strip, and pushed towards a neutral strip, which reset the ping pong ball's charge, which was then attracted to the next positively charged strip. This resulted in a ping pong ball that circulated around inside the ball. It is also how the Large Hadron Collider works.

Pinhole camera workshop

Justin Quinnell showed us how to make a 6-month exposure pinhole camera. It was great fun. Watch his video here to make yours!

Oscar the Sellafield robot

One of the really fun activities was talking to Oscar, the Sellafield robot, who answered our  questions, called us by name, and asked if we wanted him to pose for a photo! This was a  big hit with a lot of children, so there was a little bit of a wait to get to meet him.

There were also other machines on the Sellafield stand, where we could do a Crystal Maze-type game where you have to catch pieces of paper that are flying around your head and collect as many as you can in the 15 seconds you have.

Other robotics and machine hands-on activities were available as miniature replicas of how different waste and recycling processes are carried out.

BAFTA games design workshop

Another highlight was the BAFTA Young Game Designers workshop where we got to design a new game, with the designer of the new online game SkySaga. What we found really great was that, in addition to the main schools workshop, they also ran one for children with ASD and other SEN. Jay went to that one, because the main one was far too overwhelming for him. And once in the smaller group, he had a great time!

Astro Pi (website here)

We have just got our own Raspberry Pi, and we are still trying to get our heads around it. It was  really fun to see the Astro Pi stand at the fair, where they are aiming to put Raspberry Pis into  space! Children can also get involved too, with their competitions. If you are primary school  aged, you can enter The Big Idea competition, and come up with how the Raspberry Pi can be  used on the International Space Station with astronaut Tim Peake. The closing date is the 3rd April 2015, so you need to be quick if you want to enter!

There is also a secondary school Astro Pi competition, where you get to actually have your code launched into space! Deadline for the initial stage is 3rd April 2015.

On another stand we saw about 30 different Raspberry Pis, all being used to calculate Pi!

What on Earth books

One of the very few sales stands was the What on Earth books stand. Chris Lloyd, a home educator himself, is the man behind these books. We will be using these as our timelines in lower and upper elementary. Find out more about the books here. I will also write a blog post about them shortly!

Extracted DNA

I had the opportunity to extract my own DNA, and put it in a little vial, to present my own mum for Mothers' Day! Using salt water, washing up liquid, pineapple juice and rubbing alcohol, I was able to actually see my own DNA rising to the surface of the liquid it was in. To get the DNA there in the first place was slightly unpleasant! I had to swish salt water around my mouth for 2 minutes without spitting it out! Then, I had to put some of that solution, with the cells collected from my cheeks, into a container, add washing up liquid, invert it 3 times, add 4 drops of pineapple juice, invert that 3 times, then add the rubbing alcohol. I asked the people on the stand from the Life Science Centre how they extracted DNA in a lab, and this is exactly the same way!

And here is how you can do this at home! Once you have completed Step 5, you need to leave the liquid, and the white strands and clumps you see forming is your own DNA!

Rowland Emett's Marvellous Machines

Have you watched Chitty Chitty Bang Bang recently? The machines in the film, the one that makes the breakfast, makes the 'toot sweets', and all the other machines featured in the film, were designed by Rowland Emett. There was a display of some of his amazing work at the Big Bang Science Fair, and we were fascinated at how beautiful the machines were. Watch a video about them here.

And lots more...

These are just some of the things we were able to do at our two days at the Big Bang Fair. There were loads more, from building a motor using a paperclip, magnet, battery and copper wire, robotics competitions, Formula 1 technology, dancing robot arms, a thermal camera, a presentation by WaterAid where we had to carry water around the stand like they have to in Africa, a model of the Warhorse, making music from vegetables, a huge rocket built from K'nex, a chance to play games using an Oculus Rift headset, a spin on the human gyroscope, balancing a ball on an Airbus jetstream, a planetarium with shows, a robot maze, a look at meteorites and earth rocks, learning how painkillers work with proteins in the body, making paper aeroplanes, changing tyres on a car, a Mars Rover display, talking to inspirational people from the Armed Forces and learning how science and engineering are big roles in the forces, getting dog tags cut, talking to a Beefeater, seeing an eagle, talking to people working on the Higgs boson project and an astronomer working on the Gaia project, where they are photographing 1 billion stars in the Milky Way (only 1% of all the stars in it) and using the world's first 1 billion megapixel camera to do it!

All in all, we had a very packed couple of days. We found the Big Bang Fair to be really interesting and educational. On the Friday we were given many educational resources to help with our current and future learning, and all of the stands treated us seriously as home educators. They were all very excited that we were home educating and many of them offered to run workshops and give talks to home education groups. We made sure we asked everyone what their jobs were, how they got to be doing what they do, and the stories were very inspirational. We got a lot of careers advice, from the people actually in the careers, and their enthusiasm and love for what they do really came across.

There were a lot of stage shows, which we did not have time to do, a lot of hands on activities which served as introductions. We could see how these could be adapted for younger and older children, with a little imagination (obviously they cannot cater for all ages at the same time) and if we talked to the stand holders, they were more than happy to go into more detail for the older people among us!

National Science + Engineering Competition

One of the last exhibitions we saw was for the Crikey Bikey - a harness designed by an 11-year old girl called Sky, to help parents help their children to ride a bike. It was designed as part of a STEM competition, and she was one of many juniors and seniors displaying their ideas at the Big Bang Fair. What struck me about Sky, was that she was very innovative, a great presenter, and very passionate about designing her own products. What a great learning journey she has been on. Not only that, but she won first prize in the Engineering/Technology stream of the National Science + Engineering Competition (Junior Section) along with her sister Kia for the Crikey Bikey!

Unfortunately, as we only attended on the Friday and Saturday, we missed most of these exhibitions. Wednesday would have been the best day to go, as that is judging day for the National Science + Engineering competition. Next year, we aim to go on that day, to inspire our young people even more as to what they can achieve, even before they are 18.

I managed to speak to one of the people involved with engaging students with the competition, and he would love to see more home educated juniors and seniors entering the competition. Hopefully we will see more home educators entering and exhibiting too in the coming years! Find out how to enter here.

Would we go again? What is our main tip for people going next year?

We will definitely be going back. One tip we really have is that you need to be enquirers yourselves, especially if an activity seems too simple or too complex for the children you take. The people there are more than happy to pitch at all different levels to match a child's questions and interest (we were adults, an 11-year old and a 3 year old and we all learnt loads!). It might not be so obvious upon first seeing a possibly simple craft activity or stand, but we found out so much, even the adults have had a reinvigorated enthusiasm for science! Oh, and ask for resources. We came away with three full bags of books, posters and information to use as springboards for our learning in the coming months!

Did you go to the Big Bang Science Fair this year? How did you find it? Will you go again? We would love to hear your experiences!