Aberdeen British Science Festival

4-9 September 2012

Eleanore Rayner - BMS Level 2 Undergraduate Student

As I write this, I am sitting on the train back from Aberdeen, still mesmerised by the week I have just spent at the British Science Festival. When I signed up to attend the event, I didn’t really know what it was. I thought it was probably a day-long event where scientists from all over the country got a chance to present their work through posters, designed to target children, adults or professionals. It was only about 2 week prior to its start that I realised what it actually was:

The British Science Festival is an annual event where scientists come and talk about what they do, create entertainment based on science, or organise field trips or workshops aimed at various audiences. The BSF is hosted at a different university every year, and some students (such as myself and all of the other students I lived with in the university’s catered halls of accommodation) can apply for bursaries to allow them to go for the entire week. The festival’s motto is ‘Energising Minds’; it aims to inspire young people into choosing science, or if they have already chosen to do so, to give them an idea of what they can do with it.

The majority of the events are free to attend, and there are often a few unadvertised stands where you can take part in experiments (for example looking at how good you are at mimicking photos of different expressions), or play with an Airzooka to look at the effects of air doughnuts on stacked plastic cups. 

There were some famous faces to be seen as well, with Brian Cox, Michael Moseley and Bill Bryson to name a few! The talks were on a vast spectrum of topics, from the problems involved with using renewable energy, through understanding the Large Hadron Collider (or trying to at least…) to the combination of science and philosophy in the matter of finding a place for ‘self’ in the nervous system.

When the daytime lectures were over, we were entertained with a choice of evening events, such as the Festival of the Spoken Nerd; a trio composed of a ‘stand-up mathematician’, ‘geek songstress’ and an ‘experiments guy’, or the ‘Murder Mysteries and Microscopes’ which showed the differences between what you see on CSI and what really happens in forensics, in the form of an entertaining play written by the local crime writer Stuart McBride, or even ‘Rocket Lolly’; a bizarre vintage science show with black and white videos of the past’s idea of the future, and eerie music played with very unusual instruments that just left everyone very perplexed.

On the Saturday night, all of the BSF bursary students were invited to the ‘End of the World Party’ with a nuclear catastrophe theme. We were passed through decontamination vents upon entry where we all donned white contamination suits and entered a tunnel in the city that had previously been used to stockpile food in case of a nuclear bomb attack. Being a science festival, there were of course stands with various activities, from food tastings to a DIY solar cell kit.

The most exciting stand was right at the end of the tunnel, where we were encouraged to be creative and make anything we wanted using all sorts of materials. From armoured space suits to weapons galore, there were some interesting results. Once everyone was satisfied that they could survive if they announced the start of The Hunger Games, we moved inside where a local band entertained us until the early hours of the morning. Needless to say, morning lectures’ attendance the next day were unusually low…

The week ended with a traditional twist, as we were able to take part in some Ceilidh dancing, combined with a little bit of history on the topic. This was a fantastic end to a fantastic week, and certainly contributed to that magic feeling we all left with. As for what I gained from it? Well, a whole new lot of friends, for starters, and a thoroughly energised mind!