{"id":2228,"date":"2015-03-19T13:56:14","date_gmt":"2015-03-19T13:56:14","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blog.soton.ac.uk\/evoice\/?p=2228"},"modified":"2015-04-01T15:15:23","modified_gmt":"2015-04-01T15:15:23","slug":"organising-the-science-and-engineering-festival-zena-hilton","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blog.soton.ac.uk\/evoice\/organising-the-science-and-engineering-festival-zena-hilton\/","title":{"rendered":"Behind the scenes of the Science and Engineering Festival"},"content":{"rendered":"

It’s an award winning event which shows\u00a0how\u00a0science shapes our world, from the importance of bacteria to discoveries in the solar system.\u00a0This year’s\u00a0Science and Engineering Festival has so far attracted\u00a0more than 3000 people.\u00a0 The\u00a0coordinator, Zena Hilton talks to e-Voice<\/em> about how she got the show on the road and looks ahead to Ocean and Earth Day at the end of\u00a0April. <\/strong><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Q. Can you give us your personal perspective about being behind the scenes of such a large project?<\/strong><\/p>\n

The Southampton Science and Engineering Festival is focused around two key events: Science and Engineering Day and Ocean and Earth Day. The festival, which is part of British Science Week<\/span><\/a>, includes two free public open days \u2013 Science and Engineering Day <\/span><\/a>which took place on\u00a0Saturday 14 March and Ocean and Earth Day <\/span><\/a>which is on\u00a0Saturday 25 April.<\/p>\n

I coordinated the advertising for the festival as a whole and project managed the Science and Engineering Day itself. On the day, there were more than 80 shows, tours and activities for\u00a0all ages including wearable technologies; the health of your home; landslides; the secrets of animal bones; virtual musical instruments; stem cells; knee replacements; memory loss; immune cells and much more.<\/p>\n

Science and Engineering Day is the largest event I have ever worked on and is not something that you can do by yourself! There are many staff and students that have a great deal of experience working on\u00a0the day, so building up a relationship with them, especially in the early planning stages was essential.<\/p>\n

Q. What was different about the event this year?<\/strong><\/p>\n

A<\/strong>. For the first time, the planning for the festival is being looked at over a three-year period, instead of year-on-year.\u00a0We refreshed\u00a0the marketing to better reflect the aim of the festival which is to educate and inspire people.\u00a0Developing a social media presence has helped to broaden the geographic reach of the event and build\u00a0it up\u00a0as a regional science festival.<\/p>\n

Q. What\u00a0was the\u00a0University keen to promote in particular this year?<\/strong><\/p>\n

A<\/strong>. The main thing was to try to find a balance of new activities and popular activities from previous years, rather than highlighting anything in particular.\u00a0 Also ensuring that contributions came from a broad range of faculties and academic units was key.<\/p>\n

As 2015 is the International Year of Light, there was the chance to explore the fibre-drawing towers and clean rooms, which produce the optical fibres that power the Internet and power global communication networks.<\/p>\n

2015 is also the centenary of Einstein’s Theory of General Relativity, so there were\u00a0mathematics activities related to this, including a lecture on the Science of Stephen Hawking.<\/p>\n

Q. What were\u00a0some of the favourite events this year?<\/strong><\/p>\n

A.<\/strong> Tours of the RJ Mitchell wind tunnel, where Britain\u2019s Olympic athletes conducted testing ahead of their Gold medal success.\u00a0 Other favourites were the Laser Light Express, Ian B Dunne\u2019s Science Magic show, and a whole range of hands-on activities.<\/p>\n

\"windtunnel\"<\/a>Q. Why is this event significant to the University?<\/strong><\/p>\n

A.<\/strong> Science and Engineering Day is a real celebration. Staff and students work together to showcase what we do to educate and inspire the wider public, especially young people.<\/p>\n

Q. How does this event\u00a0link with connectivity?<\/strong><\/p>\n

A.<\/strong> Science and Engineering Day is a \u201cconnected\u201d event in various ways. Staff and students work together to make the day possible and those that attended were staff, students, alumni and members of the public. This year, Lloyds Register and Southampton City Council also led activities.<\/p>\n

Q. How will you measure the success of the fair?<\/strong><\/p>\n

A<\/strong>. In addition to keeping track of visitor numbers, social media has provided almost instant feedback this year, and it is interesting to hear how much people enjoyed the event, whether for the first time or for the fourth time<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Ocean and Earth Day is on the 25 April at the National Oceanography Centre and runs from 10:30 to 16:00. You can find more information here<\/a>.<\/strong><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

It’s an award winning event which shows\u00a0how\u00a0science shapes our world, from the importance of bacteria to discoveries in the solar system.\u00a0This year’s\u00a0Science and Engineering Festival has so far attracted\u00a0more than 3000 people.\u00a0 The\u00a0coordinator, Zena Hilton talks to e-Voice about how she got the show on the road and looks ahead to Ocean and Earth Day…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":97356,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-2228","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.soton.ac.uk\/evoice\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2228","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.soton.ac.uk\/evoice\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.soton.ac.uk\/evoice\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.soton.ac.uk\/evoice\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/97356"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.soton.ac.uk\/evoice\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2228"}],"version-history":[{"count":26,"href":"https:\/\/blog.soton.ac.uk\/evoice\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2228\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2516,"href":"https:\/\/blog.soton.ac.uk\/evoice\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2228\/revisions\/2516"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.soton.ac.uk\/evoice\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2228"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.soton.ac.uk\/evoice\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2228"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.soton.ac.uk\/evoice\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2228"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}