Today I was able to give a small talk with Michael Butler to the Industrial Liaison Committee. I spoke about the outreach we were doing. It was nice to see how much debate it raised . The main consensus was that this is not just an ECS problem but a Russell Group problem. This is …
Category Archive: Uncategorized
Mar 20
ICT Conference: 17th March 2014: The alternative computing curriculum.
On Monday 17th March I was lucky enough to be invited to speak at the ICT Conference 2014 at King Edwards School. The aim of the conference was to bring together various schools in order to discuss ICT in schools, ICT facilities and issues in ‘bring your own devices’. There was a huge interest in …
Mar 17
ECS’s nanolab at the big bang on 15th March!
On 15th March, as well as Erica we also had our wonderful Nano Lab lead by Dr Asa Asadollahbaik. This was a popular activity as it was interactive and had activities which would not normally take place in the classroom. A write up of the activity from Asa follows: We had lab coveralls and lab glasses …
Mar 16
Erica’s first super fan!
We had a little two year old yesterday who was absolutely amazed with Erica. His family came to the Big Bang for two days. Apparently last night he spent a chunk of time talking in his sleep about Erica he ways saying ‘Erica come back’ quite a lot. He has been back for a second …
Mar 16
Day 4: ‘omg shes a trumping rhino’ at the big bang!
I had to ask for a definition of what trumping meant (it means fart!) but this has been something that has kept many people amused for the 4 days! Its really nice to see faces of young people when they are amazed at the electronics inside Erica and telling people about the work thats gone …
Mar 16
Day 3: Best question of the day: ‘if Erica was put into the wild would she survive?’
The best thing about doing events is the great randomness of questions. The question above was amazing and refreshing. It was asked by a 4 year old girl who was excited at seeing a ‘wild animal!’. The response has been amazing. There are a steady flow today as it’s a family day. The twitter feature …
Mar 14
Day 2: Erica tweets and farts,
Today we had Erica, as well as Studend robotics on the stand. Tyler was with student robotics and I stayed with Erica. I stopped counting at 550 people, which was at lunch time. Today I focused on the social media side of Erica. I decided to start tweeting about Erica this morning and as soon …
Mar 14
Day 1: Erica’s adventure at the Big Bang in Birmingham.
Today was an exciting day! Tyler and I got to the NEC early in the morning to make sure that our Erica stand looked presentable and to take the bubblewrap off Erica. There was enough bubble wrap to fill the space we were allocated! Luckily setting up Erica did not cause any problems. As we …
Mar 14
Packing Erica to go to the Big Bang Fair in Birmingham!
3/12/14: Packing for the big bang in Birmingham. From 13th March to 16th March ECS will be represented at the Big Bang Festival in Birmingham. We will be doing a number of things: Erica the Rhino will be there for the full four days (more about packing for Erica’s holiday to Birmingham will be coming …
Mar 11
International Womens Day Event – 7th March
On 7th March ECS were VERY lucky to have 70 female pupils from various school visit the department. We invited them its international womens day on the 8th March and we wanted to celebrate this as part of Univeristy of Southampton’s international women’s day celebrations. There were 5 Schools that attended. These were: Park High …