Experience Science week
So, I’ve just finished running a week of workshops for high school students visiting UQ (hello to all those visiting!) It’s been quite an enjoyable week - I’ve met some really interesting students, and had some good discussions, which is always the highlight for me, and hopefully they got some useful information out of it as well.
The activity which we ran was to build capcitors out of film canisters. (A capacitor is a device which is able to store charge - they’re the cylindrical things you’ve probably seen inside computers!) We then charged them up using static electricity, and discharged them to get a spark. Each capacitor can store about 5000 volts (yes, really!) but because it’s such low current (so few electrons) they’re not actually dangerous to use. When we had time, we then went and set off our Tesla coil, which can produce sparks of up to a metre in length, and reaches a couple of million volts. It’s pretty darn cool, and was one of the things that got me hooked into physics (or at very least, doing demos!)
Perhaps the only thing which was a bit disappointing about the week were the few students who really didn’t want to be there. I know that the workshops (not just ours! 
) were all booked out, so it seems really unfair for other, interested people to miss out on going while these guys (& girls) can just have the day of school, and distract other people. I guess it’s unavoidable, but it’s still unfortunate. 
For those who were there, did you have any feedback? I know you did survey forms, but they were pretty limited. Did you find the activity interesting? Was there somthing you would have preferred? E.g., would you have preferred us to do a talk on, say, black holes or quantum mechanics? Would you have preffered lab tours? What could we do to make the day better for you? I’d appreciate any feedback, and you’re welcome to be anonymous
As per my last post, it’s not long to Harry Potter so I doubt I’ll have time to post anything over the weekend. I might post my first thoughts about HP on Monday
Dave Barry Says:
Would you have preffered lab tours?
I read this as ‘lab torus’. Too much regular motion on tori for me….
I went to the workshop in the first session on friday. I actually enjoyed it a fair bit. I think the reason that some of the stuff may have been a bit boring is the fact that the person who was running a session had to keep it at a level that we understand. None the less it was still pretty interesting and i did enjoy it. Also stuff about black holes and quantum mechanics would have been pretty interesting but i dont think any of us could follow it. Anyway thats it for me. Thanks for the great session
~Dane~
P.S. Enjoy HP, i know i will