#3MWFinal

On the 5th of May I attended the 3 Minute Wonder Final which was held at the Royal Institution - yes, the place where the Christmas Lectures are filmed in! I have only ever seen the Royal Institution on TV and so, it was THE most AMAZING thing to finally get the chance to sit in those fuschia coloured lecture theatre seats. 

So, what's the 3 Minute Wonder Final?

The 3 Minute Wonder is the IOP's national science communication competition where researchers in physics or a physics-related field battle it out to see who can describe their day job the best in only 3 minutes!

And so, I was there to see the finalists battle it out for the winner's trophy!

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That afternoon, I made my way to Green Park and walked to the Royal Institution after a revision session at university. When I arrived I was in awe by how pretty this area was! Here are some pictures I took on my way to the Royal Institution!

#TheRitz

Pretty flowers

Busy London #ClassicRedLondonBus

And then I saw the Royal Institution sign - I'd arrived! #Surreal

As soon as I got in I saw this - Michael Faraday money!!! How cool?!

We were given some refreshments and then it was time to enter the lecture theatre ... WOOOWWW! is what I said to myself when I walked in. It looked exactly like how it appeared on TV except this time I could touch it!

The judges were seated and we were almost ready to start
From left to right: Fran Scott, Marek Kukula, Helen Thomas, Maggie Philbin

So many people had come to see the 3 Minute Wonder Final

The finalists sitting nervously whilst they wait for their 3 minutes to shine - good luck!

We got front row seats!

- THE JUDGES -

Judge Number 1 - Fran Scott, a well-known science communicator and only female science presenter on Children's BBC. Learn more about her here.

Judge Number 2 - Marek Kukula, is a Public Astronomer at the Royal Observatory in Greenwich, author of the Intimate Universe and co-author of The Scientific Secrets of Dr Who. Check out more about him on his Twitter here.

Judge Number 3 - Maggie Philbin is a tech journalist, co-founder and CEO of TeenTech CIC, an award winning organisation that helps young people, their parents and teachers understand more about the opportunities in STEM. Find out more about her here.

Judge Number 4 was Helen Thomas, sound engineer and producer and director of science programmes for the BBC. She's the executive producer of Stargazing Live and has been nominated for a BAFTA for the 'Supersized Earth' series.

Competitor 1 - Francis Ridgeon spoke about superconductors and modelling magnetic fields.

Dr. Mark Telling, Chairperson, IOP London and South East branch, (right) hosted the final

Competitor 2 - Elisabeth Matthews told us about her search for exoplanets!

Competitor 3 - Oras Al-Ani from the University of Newcastle discussed her research into making solar cells more efficient.

Competitor 4 - Jayesh Goyal from the University of Exeter spoke about his search for aliens!

Competitor 5 - Joe Spencer from the Quantum Light and Matter Group at the University of Southampton spoke about NANOWIRES, extremely, extremely small wires! He also referenced Raman spectroscopy, a method of observing vibrational, rotational and other low frequency modes in a system. 

Competitor 6 - Next contestant from the Welding Institute spoke about mixing metals with ceramics to produce a material with useful properties

Competitor 7 - Kerstin Goepfrich from Cambridge University spoke about DNA origami - so cool! She explained her work really well and most importantly with an anecdote which I really liked. I think she was one of my favourites.

Competitor 8 - Arnesh Vijay from Nokia Bell Labs spoke about mobile technology.

Competitor 9 - Doris Benda from Sheffield University shared her research work on building cooling units to improve solar efficiency. 

Competitor 10 - Sebastian Wood from the National Physical Laboratory spoke about his work on polarised Raman spectroscopy and dancing molecules! He had the best prop and was the only one to not use slides - to me it was a flawless performance! He got a 10/10 from Fran Scott - the highest score of the night from a single judge!

- ANNOUNCING THE WINNER -

Roy Sambles, IOP President, said a final few words before the winner was announced. He was impressed by all the contestants and was grateful to be part of a wonderful organisation such as the Institute of Physics and said: 'UK physics is in good hands'. 

AUDIENCE CHOICE AWARD goes to Joe Spencer

RUNNER UP goes to Kerstin Goepfrich

- THE WINNER -

Joe Spencer, Quantum Light and Matter Group, University of Southampton

The winner Joe Spencer with the IOP President.

Congratulations to Joe Spencer for winning the 3 Minute Wonder Final! I had such a great time seeing other science communicators do their things and it was beneficial for me as a young sci commer to see what things I could improve on. It was very insightful. And I also got to sit in the famous Royal Institution lecture theatre! Exciting stuff! Hopefully one day I might be chosen/able to pluck the courage to speak at the Royal Institution #TheDream

#IveCaughtThePhysicsBug