Summer Scientist Week at Nottingham University

This afternoon we went to Summer Scientist Week at Nottingham University.  Both K & M really enjoyed it, K went off on her own, M preferred to have me in attendance.  There were lots of different activities/games, which aid the School of Psychology in their research and all the children there seemed to be having a great time too.  They claim that 'children (and parents!) get to learn about how the mind and brain work by experiencing real science first-hand' and there are plenty of posters around explaining about the games that the children take part in, but I didn't see any children reading them and there were many things to do that M wasn't interested in letting me look either!  While M was doing the games there weren't any explanations about what they were for either, although I did overhear an older child's question about something being answered.  The only other explanation I heard of was the one which they called the Jedi Game, when you get to try to lift a ping-pong ball in a tube with your mind (it uses an EEG scan to pick up beta waves, which turns on a fan in the base of the tube if I understood correctly!).  In between the games upstairs, when children were taken off individually (parents welcome to stay with their child if desired), there were activites downstairs, such as the Jedi Game, Splat the Rat (try to hit the 'rat' with a bat as is came out of a sloping drainpipe), face painting and various others.  One that was quite interesting was one that involved throwing 3 beanbags into holes in a board with different points, then trying again with special glasses on that make everything look at though it's about 50cm to the right.  M watched another child have a go first and then on her turn very quickly worked it out and did nearly as well with the glasses on.

K the tiger!

When we got home, I asked the girls to tidy up in the playroom.  Not much tidying happened, but I did walk in to find K and a dog (M) doing some of the tapestry kits they had for Christmas!

 Then M and I had some fun mucking around with the camera.