National Science Week
Yesterday, I performed shows as part of National Science Week, at the local Queensland Museum and Sciencentre. It was pretty good fun - there was quite a good audience at each show, and some really smart kids! I did mainly a liquid nitrogen show - showing them liquid nitrogen, splashing it around - generally having good fun 
And, of course, I froze balloon animals in it, which is always a hit, especially with the younger kids. Anything with balloons they go crazy for - don’t quite know why that is!
This was part of a whole load of activities they had going on - outside the museum, they had stalls set up doing things like making slime, building towers out of marshmellows, the usual University advertising material, and the opportunity to play the Monty Hall game. (Interestingly, they played that with 10 “doors” (actually styrofoam cups, hiding a Starburst lolly!) instead of 3, and that made your strategy much clearer, as I previously mentioned in a post. It would have been interesting, though, to do it first with 3 cups, then with 10 and see whether their strategy changed.
Actually, for me the maths stall (run by a guy from the University here that I know) was probably the best there - they had juggling balls with strings attached which you could juggle into braids (does that make sense?) This was actually something I thought up (with Brett, I think) independently a while ago, and had meant to try out, but it just goes to show there’s nothing new under the sun. Even better, there’s apparently a theorem which says any braid pattern you can think can be made by juggling, which is really interesting. (Actually, you can’t do it with real balls because the attached strings get in the way of your arms, but who cares about that?)
All in all, I think it was quite a successful day, and it’s still going on today for a whole lot of visiting school students. Unfortunately, my PhD committments mean that I couldn’t do any more today. Things are getting a bit nuts at the moment, and I really need to knuckle down and do some writing!