Women in Physics Open Day at Imperial College

Today, Imperial College hosted a Women in Physics Open Day for year 11 and 12 students with special speakers including Mark Richards, Head of Outreach at Imperial; Jess Wade, a PhD student in her final year; Marina Galand, a Senior Lecturer at Imperial.

The girls who visited enjoyed science demos including 'invisible' water beads, spectrometers, dancing cornstarch,  making clouds with dry ice and superconductors! I was lucky enough to be a volunteer at the Open Day and managed to demonstrate the dry ice clouds with the fantastic Jess Wade, a PhD student at Imperial College in the EXSS (Experimental Solid State) Group.

Meeting the girls of Lampton School, a local school in my hometown was a nice surprise and most wanted to take Physics onto higher education thus making the day a success with lots of positive feedback!

I was able to help out with making 'a cloud in a bubble'. Here we have an experiment that you can do in schools provided you have some dry ice. Dry ice is solid carbon dioxide at a temperature of -79 °C - much colder than fridge! Dry ice has a special property, at room temperature it sublimes, meaning it skips out the liquid phase and goes straight from solid to gas. We add this dry ice to a bottle of water with a tube attached. When the dry ice encounters the water it sublimes and the carbon dioxide gas travel down the tube and can enter a washing up liquid solution. In here bubbles filled with carbon dioxide are made - and that's how you make a cloud in a bottle! Dry ice is used in films to give that witches' cauldron effect.

Superconductors and magnetic levitation

'Cloud in a bubble'

Jess Wade and dry ice!

Science Rocks UK at Imperial College

Jess Wade, a final year PhD student at Imperial College and Postgraduate Representative of the Women in Physics Society gave me the opportunity of a lifetime! It was the best day I have ever had at Imperial. I was lucky enough to meet the Science Rocks UK girls, who are two wonderful and inspirational girls, Elizabeth and Megan O'Shea, that promote science through their website in the form of videos and articles. Being year 10 students I was amazed by their sheer enthusiasm to promote science. The world definitely needs more girls like them in order to encourage other girls to enter the brilliant world of STEM! Check out their cool website here.

To my surprise I had met them before! Back in March 2013 at the Big Bang Fair where I was exhibiting my Nuffield Science Project carried out at Imperial College in the National Science and Engineering Competition. The girls and their wonderful parents had visited my stand at the fair and it was an absolute pleasure to meet them again.

The girls had a jam-packed day organised by the legend, Jess Wade at Imperial College. The girls had a wonderful tour of Imperial College, followed by a STEM Potential Course at the Reach Out Lab and a Maths lecture which filled their morning. After lunch the fun continued with a video interview with my favourite Vector Calculus lecturer, Professor Schwartz who gave the girls a great insight into space physics.

The fun factor really escalated with Dr. Simon Foster, Outreach superstar, who showed the girls a 'supercool' demo with a superconductor (YBCO) that had to be supercooled with liquid nitrogen. This was levitated on a magnet track (using neodymium magnets) since the superconductor, in a way, expels magnetic fields. It was the coolest thing I had ever seen and the girls loved it too!

The girls also had a chance to interview two postgraduates about their work before taking 325 steps to the top of the Queen's Tower on campus. The views were exquisite and the girls had a great time taking pictures of the picturesque views! The tour was topped off with a chance to see inside the research environment created by Norman Foster to encourage discussion between groups - the colour gradient of the walls was an added perk.

The day ended on a high with a jaw-dropping tour of the medical robotics group at the Hamlyn Centre courtesy of Felicity McGrath, Neil Clancy and Petros Giataganas. The most advanced medical robots were shown to us as well as five 3D printers - these 3D printer could print with different densities, colours and a variety of moveable one pieces could be printed! I was amazed! I've always been a fan of medical physics but this day made me want to get into medical physics right now!

Here are some highlights of the day:

Science Rocks UK and Dr. Simon Foster

Myself, Jess Wade and Science Rocks UK at the Queen's Tower

The Hamlyn Centre and Science Rocks UK, Jess Wade, myself and Felicity McGrath

The Hamlyn Centre and Science Rocks UK, Jess Wade, myself and Felicity McGrath

Dr. Simon Foster spreading his knowledge

Liquid Nitrogen!

Dr. Simon Foster and the Science Rocks girls

Magnetic levitation with a superconductor

Superconductor (YBCO)

Myself and Blackett from Queen's Tower

Blackett Lab from Queen's Tower

Royal Albert Hall from the Queen's Tower

Queen's Tower framed by SAF building, Imperial College

Colour gradient walls and research environment created by Norman Foster to encourage discussion between groups.

Colour gradient walls and research environment created by Norman Foster to encourage discussion between groups.

Hi-tech surgical robots

Hi-tech surgical robots

Hi-tech surgical robots

Wolfson Lab

Endoscope

Endoscope

Hamlyn Centre

UK Space Design Competition

Courtesy of UK Space Design Competition, 2015

I got the privilege to accompany a group of A level students in the semi-final of the UK Space Design Competition. Their brilliant video entry (which was all their independent work), won them a place at the semi-finals. The competition was fierce and it was a huge achievement for these talented students to get to the semi-finals of a national competition! The competition is designed to allow students to experience life in industry. Teams are given a set of requirements for a space settlement and are given 24 hours to design their space settlement before displaying their ideas to a panel of experts. The residential competition was held at Imperial College and a chance to earn a place at the international finals at a NASA Space Center was up for grabs!

Courtesy of Photography © Bluefax Studios

The students were, Mokrane Berboucha of Lampton School, Roshan Hansla of Heathlands School and Leon Seeamber and Parus Kargathra of Heston Community School.

The first day of the competition involved twenty hours of solid research and hard work in designing a space settlement. The students were working with around 45 other students from various other schools for a company group named Grumbo Aerospace, thus communication was vital. The other company groups were: Vulture Aviation, Rockdonnell, Dougeldyne Fletchel.

After 20+ hours of research, Grumbo Aerospace was ready to present in front of the judges which included: Anita Gale, an Associate Technical Fellow and senior project engineer at Boeing; Jeremy Curtis, Head of Education at the UK Space Agency; Dr Randall Perry, founder of the UKSDC and a senior research investigator at the Impacts and Astromaterials Research Centre at Imperial College London; and Helen Oliver, a research associate at the University of Cambridge Computer Laboratory.

The competition was high and Grumbo Aerospace just fell short of winning, earning themselves second place in the UKSDC National Final. This was no small feat and the students should be very proud of themselves and their achievement! They even got to go away with a snazzy certificate and a brain full of space knowledge!

If you would like to know more about the competition or even enter, click here. All the very best of luck!