The YinI National Science and Engineering Week Project Evaluation Report (May 2009).pdfYinI National Science & Engineering Week Project 15/05/2009 ii Contents 1. Summary 1 2. Background

The YinI National Science and Engineering Week

Project

May 2009

Engineering and Physical Sciences Research Council (EPSRC) Polaris House, North Star Avenue Swindon, SN2 1ET Wiltshire, UK

http://www.epsrc.ac.uk

YinI National Science & Engineering Week Project 15/05/2009

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Contents

1. Summary .................................................................................................1

2. Background.............................................................................................4

3. Introduction.............................................................................................6

4. Elderly Engagement ...............................................................................9

5. Schools Engagement ...........................................................................19

6. General Public Engagement ................................................................37

7. Media .....................................................................................................44

8. Future Implications...............................................................................46

9. Evaluation of Group .............................................................................49

10. Personal Development......................................................................51

Annex A General Aspects....................................................................... A-1

Annex B Elderly Engagement.................................................................B-1

Annex C Schools Engagement...............................................................C-1

Annex D General Public Engagement ...................................................D-1


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Preface This document has been produced following EPSRC’s contribution to National Science and Engineering Week 2009. The project was the first activity of this kind, and was organised by the five 2008/09 Year in Industry (YinI) students. The purpose of the document is to evaluate the activities carried out by us (the YinI students). The group’s development, as a team and on an individual basis, will be assessed in addition to evaluating the events carried out and disseminating best practice. This document also provides background information on the Year in Industry scheme and National Science and Engineering Week.

Thanks to We’d like to thank Dave Harman and Kate Miller from the Public Engagement programme for providing the opportunity and help to allow us to run the event, as well as Peter Bates for suggesting and scoping the project for us. We’d also like to thank the portfolio managers Derek Gillespie, Susan Soulsby, Katherine Jarvis, Katie Blaney and Amanda Chmura who ran the sessions at the school with us. We’d also like to thank Dr Charles Musselwhite and Hebba Haddad, researchers from UWE, for helping us out with the elderly consultation event, and all the teachers and schools for letting us run really fun sessions. Finally we’d like to thank all those who helped us out when we were planning the event and coming up with ideas. Without them the events wouldn’t have been such a success.


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1. Summary

1. Background & Introduction

1.1 In October 2008 the EPSRC-hosted Year in Industry Students (YinIs) were given a project with the aim to:

• Engage with a variety of audiences from the local Swindon community, to raise awareness, and interest in Engineering and Physical Sciences as part of National Science and Engineering Week

1.2 After planning, we developed and carried out five related events, interacting with three audiences; the elderly community; school children; and the general public.

Date Venue Activity

27/02/09 Swindon Evangelical Lunch club Discussion to capture the needs, concerns, and views of the Elderly lunch club members

09/03/09 – 11/03/09

Swindon Primary Schools (Lethbridge, Lawn, and Robert Le Kyng)

Interactive activity workshops with KS2 children

13/03/09 Brunel Shopping Centre, Swindon Public display showing outputs from activities with children and information on EPSRC and the research it funds

1.3 We also intend to run a stand in the staff bistro on 20th May, which will include

information on the activities undertaken, and on the Year in Industry scheme, in order to communicate best practice and to encourage further staff participation in public engagement activities.

2. Elderly Engagement

2.1 Outcomes:

• We engaged with 26 people aged 60 plus, who were members of the Swindon Evangelical Church Lunch Club on Devizes Road, Swindon.

• EPSRC-funded researchers Dr Charles Musselwhite, Senior Lecturer in Traffic and Transport Psychology at the University of the West of England (UWE), and Hebba Haddad, Research Associate also at UWE, attended and led a group in their transport board-game.

• We shared information with the elderly about the Strategic Promotion of Ageing Research Capacity (SPARC), the Pedestrian Accessibility and Movement Environment Laboratory (PAMELA), Inclusive Design for Getting Outdoors (I’DGO) and other related EPSRC-funded research.

• Outputs of the street design and older driver focus groups capture the main points of discussion and key messages representing their views. See Appendix B-4 and Appendix B-5.

2.2 We visited the Swindon Evangelical Church Lunch Club on Friday 27th February. The

event consisted of a brief introduction from us and Charles, followed by a consultation on street design and a focus group on driving issues using a SPARC board-game. We also paid a return visit on 27

th March to inform them about the other activities we ran

(focusing on the children’s street design solutions), and to receive feedback about our events.

2.3 Everyone with whom we interacted was very receptive and enthusiastic about the project, and feedback has been positive across the board. Through the experience we learned how best to run similar events, for instance smaller groups with round-table


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discussions worked well, and it is important to keep the discussion structured to actively steer it. Overall the levels of interest, discussion and the quality of outputs exceeded expectations.

3. Schools Engagement

3.1 Outcomes:

• SPARC research, PAMELA, Bloodhound and invisibility cloak research promoted with at least 160 children in Lawn, Lethbridge and Robert le Kyng Primary School.

• 97% of these children enjoyed and learnt about applications of Materials science, through 3 ‘hands-on’ activities: making bouncing balls; making spaghetti towers; and a design competition.

• 156 designs were produced to address the street accessibility issues raised by the elderly, (see problem sheet in Appendix C-4), and incorporated materials such as carbon fibre, acrylic and kevlar.

3.2 Three schools were visited, which included six sessions in total. Each session included a series of hands-on activities, based around the theme of ‘materials’, including an activity using the outputs from the elderly street design consultation. These were accompanied with learning points relevant to EPSRC-funded research and the science curriculum.

3.3 The children responded very positively to the activities, and especially enjoyed getting ‘hands-on’ experience. It was important to allow the children to be creative, however at the same time to keep the sessions controlled, with clear structure. Keeping control of timings was especially important, and was achieved by good pre-event planning. Feedback from teachers was also very positive, and they seemed very keen for similar events to be run, for instance a representative from the Gloucestershire LEA said he would have liked us to carry out the same event in schools from his area.

4. General Public Engagement

4.1 Outcomes:

• We talked about EPSRC and its role to 120 people, mostly local people from Swindon and the surrounding Wiltshire area, 96 (80%) of whom had never heard of the Research Councils or EPSRC before.

• Previous engagement activities and the aims of National Science and Engineering week were communicated to the 120 people we engaged with.

• 14 Bloodhound 1k club leaflets were handed out to people particularly interested in the project.

4.2 We set up a display stand at the Brunel Centre in Swindon where we showcased the previous engagement activities, and EPSRC-funded research, including Bloodhound SSC. This stand was used as a basis for us to initiate conversations with passers by.

4.3 Overall once we got a conversation going with people, their reactions were very positive, and they were generally glad to see children having fun with science and interested to see the work which EPSRC funds. Although it was difficult to get people to talk to us, on the day we found some effective methods of bringing people to the stand. This included handing out EPSRC branded pens and pencils, and building a spaghetti tower to encourage people to come along and help.


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5. Media

5.1 We were able to gain media coverage through a local newspaper, The Swindon Advertiser, and were glad to get a full paged article which appeared as a featured article on the website. Copies of the coverage can be found in Appendix A-4 and Appendix A-5.

5.2 An article based on the elderly engagement activities was also placed in the UWE Bulletin, thanks to the efforts of Charles and Hebba, (see Figure 15).

6. Future Implications

6.1 We and 5 Portfolio Managers (PMs) have become CRB-checked STEM (Science, Technology, Engineering and Maths) Ambassadors. From here, some or all of us may choose to continue in activities as STEM Ambassadors, as we now have appreciation of communicating about a subject we have a passion for and we have also been reminded about the responsibility that researchers have to carry out public consultation.

6.2 The PMs all gave positive feedback on their experiences, and were all keen to be involved with future engagement activities. They were also receptive to the prospect of opening up public engagement more widely across the organisation, and hopefully this event will stimulate increased staff involvement in public engagement activities.

6.3 We have cut across different generations and opened peoples minds towards the requirements of others and the importance of accessibility and inclusive design. We hope that in the future society can be more accommodating of the expanding elderly population.

6.4 Several children remembered examples of EPSRC research, including the invisibility cloak or roll-up TVs. This indicates that their general attitude towards science may have improved, potentially increasing ‘people-flow’, and even if they don’t go into science, they will understand and appreciate the role it has to play within society.

7. Evaluation of Group

7.1 Overall we worked well together, and kept to schedule and to budget using a variety of methods, including: weekly meetings; careful delegations of tasks; Gantt charts with flexible timings; and careful and realistic considerations of time and costs. Overall the final expenditure was about £700, and 500 working hours were required, which was mostly planning time.

8. Personal Development

8.1 As a group we learnt how to effectively work as a team to plan an event. This included running effective meetings; communication skills; delegation; team-work; planning and organisation skills; aspects of evaluation; and sticking to deadlines and budget. We also now appreciate how much work goes into planning and running an event, and how difficult it can be.

8.2 We also developed skills to engage with different audiences and to ensure engagement is targeted; and also how to approach and talk to people about the work EPSRC and the research councils do.


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2. Background

Year in Industry

2.1 The Year in Industry (YinI) is a scheme run by the Engineering Development Trust (EDT), to provide paid placement opportunities for gap year students (during or before a degree course). They provide placements for students interested in all areas of engineering, science, IT, e-commerce, business, marketing, finance and logistics.

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2.2 EPSRC has been placing YinI students since 2005 and this year provided placements for 4 students beginning in September. We, the students, are Abigail Catt (Abi) and Katherine Suddaby (Kat) in the Business and Innovation directorate; Nathaniel Wand (Nat) in Communications and Information; and Thomas Wood (Tom) in Research Base. We were joined in February 2009 by Cole Soutter, who was placed in Corporate Services.

Purpose of Event

2.3 As part of the Year in Industry, host companies are asked to identify problems and projects for YinI students to complete during the year’s work experience placement. Our line managers and mentor decided on a public engagement project for us, seeing it as an opportunity to “work together as a team and take ownership,” and apply the skills each individual brought to or developed whilst at EPSRC.

2.4 In October 2008 Peter Bates invited the 4 students at the time to “develop a project on behalf of the EPSRC Public Engagement programme, to engage the local (i.e. Swindon) community in some aspect of science and engineering within EPSRC's remit, as a contribution to National Science and Engineering Week”.

2.5 National Science and Engineering Week (NSEW)2 is an annual event co-ordinated by

the British Science Association, funded by DIUS (Department for Innovation, Universities and Skills). The ten day national celebration of science began in 1994 and aims to:

• Engage and inspire people of all ages with science and technology and their implications.

• Promote discussion and understanding of what science, engineering and technology can and cannot achieve.

• Promote knowledge of the scientific method, i.e. how scientists go about their work and reach their conclusions.

• Promote science, engineering and technology studies beyond the age of 16 and science, engineering and technology as career options. The event last year involved 1.5 million people and this year ran from 6th-15th March 2009.

2.6 EPSRC are looking to actively assist the government and the British Science Association with their on-going initiative to increase interest levels of the British public in the areas of Science and Engineering.

In addition to contributing to NSEW, we looked to assist the Public Engagement team and science community in realising their shared objectives. Our project was scoped to contribute as fully as possible to the Public Engagement programme’s aims of:

• Ensuring EPSRC’s thinking is informed by public attitudes and views

1 For further information: http://www.yini.org.uk/index.html 2 For further information: http://www.britishscienceassociation.org/web/nsew/


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• Contributing to sustaining future people flow into engineering and physical sciences

• Ensuring the public is informed about developments, achievements and impacts of EPSRC-funded engineering and physical sciences research.

Additionally the PE team are looking to encourage and develop further interest of employees’ participation in engagement activities. As part of the PE team aims we wanted to ensure that public engagement is embedded in the organisation; one way to do this is for people to get involved in activities themselves.

The Format of the Evaluation

2.7 The evaluation is split into several different sections: section 3 explains the selection of the audiences, theme, venues, and activities; sections 4-6 evaluate each of the 3 events individually; section 7 describes media coverage gained of the events; section 8 details the future implications of our work, including impact to the communities engaged and EPSRC as an organisation; section 9 evaluates our organisation and delivery of the project; and section 10 documents the personal development we gained from the project.

2.8 If you would like further details about the events or EPSRC’s public engagement programmes, please contact EPSRC’s Public Engagement programme (Kate Miller: [email protected]).


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3. Introduction

Aim of the Event

3.1 Using the brief given by Peter and information gathered on NSEW and the PE Programme, we were able to establish their high level objective:

• To engage with a variety of audiences from the local Swindon community, to raise awareness, and interest in Engineering and Physical Sciences as part of National Science and Engineering Week.

What We Did

3.2 Over a period of 5 months, along with help and guidance from our mentor Kate Miller, we proposed, developed, and carried out the following events:

• A transport and street accessibility consultation at a local elderly lunch club in Swindon, where 26 lunch club members participated in two parallel 30 minute sessions including a transport game aimed at stimulating discussion around emerging transport technologies, and an infrastructure consultation designed to understand the elderly’s views on the current street designs in Swindon.

• 6 interactive half day workshops with key stage 2 pupils from three Swindon primary schools, where pupils participated in interactive activities designed to stimulate enjoyment and thought about materials science.

• A full day engagement at a local shopping centre with a display board providing the opportunity for the general public to see what we had done and learn more about EPSRC and EPSRC-funded research.

Selection of the Audience and Venue

3.3 During the development stages of the project, we considered many options for audiences, themes, venues, and activities, but in the end we selected to engage with three different audiences: the elderly, school pupils, and the general public.

3.4 The elderly community are often neglected in the design and consultation process of emerging technology, and in the marketing of scientific progress, possibly because they are often perceived to have problems using and accepting new technology. However we felt that because the elderly are one of the great beneficiaries of technology, we should be actively engaging with them about relevant research. The ageing population in the UK also means the views of the elderly are valuable both now and for the benefit of the larger proportion of elderly users in the future.

3.5 The Swindon Evangelical Church Lunch Club was recommended by Age Concern – the UK’s largest charity working with and on behalf of the elderly. They meet on Fridays, which fitted well with our diaries, and were highly receptive of the intended plans. The club consisted of relatively active members, aged 60 plus, and had roughly 15 members each week.

3.6 We were passionate about exciting and engaging school pupils in science and the issue of a declining national interest in science and engineering was one which we wanted to help address. Having just left school ourselves and having first hand experience of the stereotypes school pupils attach to science, we felt we had an abundance of enthusiasm and relevant knowledge we could share with the pupils. We also felt we would be able to relate to the pupils, (being only a few years older than them ourselves), and could provide evidence of a real life example of where an interest in science could lead to.


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3.7 Key stage 2 children, in particular 9-11 year olds, were identified as being the most appropriate age group to engage with. It was believed that they would be old enough for us to communicate easily with, and that they could benefit from the application of some of the things they would have already covered in the classroom. At the same time, it was perceived this audience would be more adventurous and open to the idea of a science activity workshop than older children. During the feasibility exercises, primary schools were identified from across Swindon, and schools were favoured if they were close to the city centre and expressed a keen interest when contacted about the proposed plans.

3.8 The choice of the general public as a third audience was brought about by a feeling within EPSRC that the public of Swindon are unaware of the research councils, including their purpose or activities. Although EPSRC doesn’t necessarily require increased public awareness, it was felt that the organisation has a duty to be involved with the local community, and that one of the best ways to do this is by engaging with members of the public, to improve their interest in, and attitude towards, science and engineering.

3.9 The Brunel Centre was selected as it appeared to be one of the busiest public areas in Swindon that allowed stands and displays. On visiting alternative venues, we judged them as being “too quiet” and not having “adequate volume of people traffic”. Although the Brunel was slightly more expensive than these alternatives, we agreed it was worth the extra budget allocation if it meant being more likely to meet the project aims.

Selection of the Theme

3.10 We were given the initial brief of using a theme or topic within EPSRC’s remit. National Science and Engineering Week had the optional theme of “Change” along with two large programmes volunteers could contribute to: “Darwin 200” – the 200th Birthday of Charles Darwin celebrating his contribution to Evolution; and “The Year of Astronomy” – commemorating Galileo’s use of the telescope 400 years ago. However we felt the programmes didn’t fit comfortably within the EPS remit, and whilst the theme of “Change” was seen to be adaptable, we decided we would select our own topic.

3.11 We began looking at the key stage 2 curriculum, searching for a topic covered by one of EPSRC’s programmes which also presented opportunities for interactive activities 9-11 year olds could participate in. “Materials” was selected as fitting these criteria, whilst we also felt together we had sufficient knowledge of the subject area to allow us to develop clear learning points.

Selection of the Activities

3.12 Following the selection of the audiences and themes, we realised each would require activities catered to the participants’ specific interests, needs, concentration levels, and capabilities.

3.13 For the elderly, we looked to use activities that could be carried out while participants remained seated, involved conversing, and maximised their participation while catering for their needs and we had been allocated an hour by the host lunch club.

Early stage research for the project provided us with the idea of incorporating the EPSRC funded programme SPARC – the Strategic Promotion of Ageing Research Capacity. We selected a particular research project carried out by the University of West England (UWE) researcher Dr Charles Musselwhite, who had produced a game designed to stimulate discussion and capture the elderly’s concerns when driving on British roads. Charles agreed to assist us with our event and host his board game with club members who had recent experience of driving.


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In addition we scoped out an idea for a consultation session. 30 minutes would be spent discussing the elderly’s concerns when going about their pedestrian journeys in Swindon and the group would be provided with photographs and a map of Swindon to stimulate ideas and conversation. The outputs from these discussions were captured on a flipchart under the headings of Pluses, Concerns, and Opportunities and then fed into the school’s street design competition.

3.14 Soon after the decision to include school pupils we realised the activities would have to be exciting enough to keep the pupils attention, whilst also being within both the school curriculum and EPSRC’s remit, and with a strong scientific message behind them.

Using recommendations from the NSEW planning activities pack, we selected the spaghetti towers and bouncy ball activities due to their relevance to materials, high level of audience participation, and relatively cheap cost of running. The third activity, The Street Design Competition, was scoped out as an application of the elderly’s views using guidance from Charles Musselwhite and our imagination. It was realised the final package would be fully shaped and finalised following the elderly engagement and receiving the outputs of their concerns. The children would be spilt into groups of 5-6, and teams would compete for prizes in each activity, which meant individual contributions in the design competition had to be built into a team submission.

3.15 At the Brunel Centre we decided that we should set up a stand and include information on the previous activities, as well as information on EPSRC and EPSRC-funded research. Using advice from people who had run public engagement projects in shopping centres and public spaces before, we realised the importance of making the stand interesting, to grab the public’s attention and entice them in. This meant including display boards to attract passers-by who were reluctant to approach us, as well as tables to display corporate publications. It was felt we would be as flexible as possible and adapt on the day to suit the public’s attitudes, and it was anticipated that we would also have to clearly show we were not looking to sell products.

Bistro event

3.16 It was also decided that as part of communicating our activities to other Research Council staff, we would put up a display in the staff bistro. This would include a similar stand to the Brunel Centre, showcasing what we did, and also a stand showcasing the Year in Industry, in order to get gain further interest in the scheme. This would also help to disseminate best practice and could be used as a chance to encourage greater staff participation in public engagement activities.


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4. Elderly Engagement

Summary

4.1 The objectives for this event, an important element of the overall project, were fully met and to some extent exceeded. Everyone with whom we interacted was very receptive and enthusiastic about the project, and feedback has been positive across the board, though through the experience we have identified improvements to some functional aspects. Overall the levels of interest, comprehensive discussion and the quality of outputs exceeded expectations.

Objectives

• To raise the awareness of 15 people aged 60 or above about ‘cutting-edge’ research into the accessibility of transport and infrastructure for the elderly community and have EPSRC researchers associated in this field attend the event.

• To capture the needs, concerns and views of representatives from Swindon’s elderly community when using transport, infrastructure and general accessibility.

Outcomes

• We engaged with 26 people aged 60 plus, members of the Swindon Evangelical Church Lunch Club on Devizes Road, Swindon. The event took place on Friday 27th February 2009 over an hour, 1-2pm, with lunch beforehand.

• EPSRC-funded researchers Dr Charles Musselwhite, Senior Lecturer in Traffic and Transport Psychology at the University of the West of England (UWE), and Hebba Haddad, Research Associate also at UWE Centre for Transport and Society, attended and led a group in their transport board-game. Their areas of specialism include traffic and transport psychology, car driving behaviour, travel needs of older people and environmental psychology and street design.

• We shared information and material about the Strategic Promotion of Ageing Research Capacity (SPARC), the Pedestrian Accessibility and Movement Environment Laboratory (PAMELA), Inclusive Design for Getting Outdoors (I’DGO) and other related EPSRC-funded research.

• Outputs of the street design and older driver focus groups capture the main points of discussion and key messages representing their views. See Appendix B-4 and Appendix B-5.

Participant experiences

• Participants reported good or excellent levels of enjoyment, interest and interaction. They rated the activity leaders and the organisation of the event as excellent.

• The lunch club co-ordinator, who also participated, rated the pitch/tone of communication, steering of discussion, encouragement of participation and listening to participants as good. She rated excellent clarity of information and a good presentation delivery from Charles Musselwhite. She added “the team were very friendly and mixed well with the elderly people at the luncheon club”. The overall level of interest and engagement was rated high.

• Charles endorsed that “engaging with the end-user is of utmost importance,” and found the event to be an “interesting and interactive way” of doing this. He said “I thought the day was great…It is always fun to engage with the public.” He also expressed that it was well organised and most enjoyable.

Participant impact

• The event sparked lots of discussion during the following week’s meeting about EPSRC, research, transport and street design. The lunch club co-ordinator said “We learnt more about the work of EPSRC. People enjoyed getting their gripes about Swindon’s roads and pavements off their chest!”


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• 50% of participants who filled in a questionnaire said they could remember “a lot” about EPSRC, whilst the other 50% remembered “a little” from what one person described as “interesting discussions”. Unfortunately they did not give examples of what they remembered. This would be something to bear in mind when designing a questionnaire for future similar activities.

• The event impacted 60% of their views of science and engineering “a lot”, with one participant saying “I’m always interested in progress”, and 40% “a little”. All participants would be looking out for news about next year’s National Science and Engineering Week.

• Eight participants took home a SPARC brochure, potentially engaging in greater long-term impact through further reading and sharing with friends and/or relatives.

Best Practice

• Smaller groups, maximum of about six, work better for open discussion in terms of maintaining control and achieving optimum group dynamics.

• Making the activity relevant and identifiable is important to stimulate engagement.

• Round-table or circular format for discussion encourages and catalyses participation.

• Use of tangible materials brings the subject closer to home and adds a lively dimension for engagement and creative thinking.

• To obtain quality feedback from this type of audience, it’s important to ask structured, open questions and actively steer discussion to keep on topic and meet targets.

• Continuously refer to relevant research throughout discussion.

Activity Overview When and where

4.2 A copy of the programme flier sent to the lunch club is shown in Appendix B-1. We held the event at Swindon Evangelical Church on Friday 27

th February 2009 over an hour,

1300-1400, with lunch beforehand. There was a return visit a month later on March 27th

to feedback.

Event timetable

4.3 The basic timetable is shown below, with more detail in the following paragraphs.

Event Part Description Timing

Pre-event preparation

• Scoping out ideas and resources with SPARC, Age Concern, Swindon Borough Council and relevant researchers

• Liaising with lunch club co-ordinators, YinI students and Charles Musselwhite

Weeks beforehand

Set-up • Setting up resources 20-30 minutes

Lunch • Informal conversation with club members 30 minutes

Introduction • Introducing ourselves, NSEW and EPSRC, funding

research to improve inclusive design, accessibility and quality of life

15 minutes

Talk from Charles • First-hand experience of research into accessibility in

transport and infrastructure 10 minutes

• Transport board-game led by Charles and Hebba

• A fun and interactive game, prompting discussion on driving issues and solutions

Activities • Street design consultation led by YinIs

• Discussing issues of lighting, street furniture, pavements and the ‘green’ environment

30 minutes

Round-up • Feedback from activities and what happens next

• Q&A, thank you, comments box 5 minutes

Return visit (1 month on)

• Giving feedback from NSEW school activities and Brunel public engagement

• Receiving feedback about previous event

40 minutes


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Introduction and talk

4.4 Firstly we gave an introduction to the whole group about EPSRC and National Science and Engineering Week (Appendix B-2). Then Charles Musselwhite and Hebba Haddad, EPSRC-funded researchers from the University of the West of England, introduced themselves and Charles gave a short talk on the background of his work into transport and street design with the elderly generation.

Transport board-game

4.5 We then divided into two groups for the transport board-game and street design consultation activities. Charles and Hebba led the board-game, whilst Kat and Tom participated in the group and recorded comments from the discussion (see Appendix B-4 for the outputs).

Figure 1 Transport board-game

Street design consultation

4.6 Abi, Nat and Cole led the consultation on street design, recording the participants’ comments on a flip chart (Appendix B-3). We used a Google Earth map of the local area and several photographs of local street scenes to help them visually identify with the issues. The outputs from this consultation can be found in Appendix B-5.


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Figure 2 Street design consultation

Round-up

4.7 After 30 minutes on each parallel session, we reconvened for a round-up of the whole event. YinI leaders from each group gave brief feedback from discussions, before I thanked all participants and emphasised the application of their outputs in the next stage of our project. We made the suggestion of coming again to show them children’s work and other material from the next stage, which was well supported.

4.8 The street design ‘concerns’ and ‘opportunities for improvement’ were successfully presented to local primary school children at stage 2 of the project, in the form of a ‘problem sheet’ (Appendix C-4). The children responded, carefully considering these ‘problems’ in relation to elderly members of their community, and designing creative solutions for the streets.


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Figure 3 Round-up

Return visit

4.9 Post-National Science and Engineering Week, on Friday 27th March, Nat, Abi and Cole

paid a return visit to the lunch club to give feedback about the school visit, (specifically about the children’s designs in response to the accessibility problems raised), and about the trip to the Brunel Centre. This was also an opportunity to receive more feedback about the previous session and provide two-way communication between the elderly and the primary school children.

Activity Evaluation

4.10 Presented below is a brief table outlining feedback for each part of the project. The main elements are described in more detail following the table, and full copies of the questionnaires can be found in Appendix B-6.

Feedback table

Event Part Positives Negatives Improvements

Pre-event • Organised well in advance

• YinIs and Charles and Hebba fully briefed

• Well advertised

• Lack of thorough knowledge of EPSRC reference material

• Look at material together and discuss/practice interjecting EPSRC research into activities

Set-up • All resources in place

• Plenty of time to set up and

• Lunch overran slightly, so participants were still around

• Prioritise making sure the audience are comfortable


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‘mingle’ with club members tables and the start was less defined

Introduction • Well received

• Positive interest

• Some found it difficult to hear us properly

• Gather the audience in front of speakers, not around tables

• Use a microphone if possible


• Ideal group size and dynamic

• Articulate and opinionated discussion

• Input from everyone on a wide range of topics

• Obvious enjoyment

• Some tendency to go off topic

• A longer session may allow the game to become more competitive

• Proactively maintain discussion focus


• Good use of resources (map and photos)

• Identification with the issues

• Good format for discussion

• Obvious enjoyment in being asked their opinion

• Built-in EPSRC research

• Difficult to control everybody talking at once

• Smaller groups for better control and group dynamic

• Bigger map, to be more of a visual feature

• Interject EPSRC research even more

Round-up • Good finishing point, with feedback from both activities

• Emphasis of application in ‘what happens next’

• Invitation to come back

• Felt slightly rushed, as people started talking about leaving and lost focus

• Give regular time-checks to participants, so they don’t have to worry what time it is

Return visit • Tangible materials were stimulating

• Project brought to life to participants

• Smaller groups were a better forum

• Low number of participants due to lack of prior communication about the event from co-ordinators

• Make sure communication is passed on

Feedback • Most effective feedback was verbal, through informal comments and conversation

• Useful, timely feedback from the co-ordinator questionnaire

• Some statistics and general feeling obtained from participant questionnaire

• Comments box on the day only received 2 comments

• Participant questionnaires from the return visit were not completed well

• Request comments more assertively, standing with the box by the exit

• Hand out the card and pens

• Make the questionnaire more of a guided group exercise, inviting questions/discussion on completing it

Detailed feedback Pre-event

4.11 To find a good topic for engaging elderly people, and appropriate researchers to be involved and give a talk, we researched and consulted both internally and externally. We gained useful recommendations and resources from the Director of SPARC, EPSRC colleagues and academics in the field.

4.12 There were no surprises on the day, thanks to proactive organisation and full briefing for everyone involved. We decided that all YinIs should know how to run both activities, making plans more flexible in case any of us or Charles and Hebba couldn’t make it. The lunch club co-ordinators were sent the event programme on 9

th February and

asked to circulate it among club members, advertising well in advance. More familiarity with the EPSRC reference material, and practice of how to incorporate it throughout the event, could enable more effective application.


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Set-up

4.13 We gave ourselves plenty of time to prepare and assemble necessary resources for the event. Informal ‘mingling’ with the club members over lunch was a good icebreaker and created a gentle pitch for introduction.

Introduction

4.14 The introduction was well received, with some positively interested comments from the front. However due to the unprecedented size of the group, and because participants were still sat around tables since lunch had over-run, some people at the back could not hear well enough despite our speaking with raised voices. Two people that were hard of hearing regrettably chose to leave because of this.


4.15 Charles said “I think it went very well. I thought the participants were very articulate and came up with some good thoughts and opinions. Just the right number of people (six) played our game I think.”

He continued: “Very interesting that some of the same things came up as from our previous focus groups (such as youngsters racing up behind old people as soon as they see the grey hair) and a few novel comments too (such as being more anti-cyclists!)”

4.16 The YinI students commented: “Participants appeared engaged and the topics discussed were relevant to them. They were able to relate to one another’s experiences and had shared similar feelings to other group members. The discussions remained focused most of the time though some members had gripes about the local council and actively tried to steer conversation onto this topic. The respondents were surprisingly dismissive of the new technologies that came to surface through the game. They were sceptical about their reliability and the extent to which they "lost control" over their vehicle. A longer session may have allowed for the game to become more competitive. That said, during the 30 minutes allocated we were able to discuss a wide range of topics with input from all six participants.

“There was obvious enjoyment in the game, since participants were laughing a lot as well as discussing! All the participants were engaged and enthusiastic.”


4.17 The map and photos worked very well as intended, and participants enjoyed pinpointing places of discussion on the map. It could perhaps be bigger than A3 to make it more of a visual feature, accessible from where participants were seated. Since we had researched and taken photos of where they live and go to the shops, participants’ recognition prompted thinking and discussion about their pedestrian journeys, (see Figure 4).


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Figure 4 Street design consultation – use of photos

4.18 It was quite difficult to control the group when several people talked at once, and some individuals had a lot of stories. However we managed to steer discussion using the four-topic structure of Pavement, Street Furniture, Lighting and Green Environment. There were enough leaders to give attention to different sub-groups at the same time, and I reconvened the group when it was time to move onto the next topic. We recognised that with a group that size, we should be prepared to split into smaller groups to maintain focus, make talking and listening easier and keep a balanced group dynamic.

4.19 Observations from YinI students included: “They seemed to really enjoy it; especially being asked to give their views instead of receiving a lecture”; “We managed to give them a lot of material to take home. The EPSRC-funded research was well incorporated, but perhaps could have interjected more”; “The format of sitting in a circle worked well for discussion. The flip chart drew participants’ attention to the same focus, and was an important visual stimulus”; and “Informal comments were very positive and it was nice to have an invitation to come back!”

Return visit

4.20 The use of tangible materials such as photos, children’s work, a spaghetti tower prototype, material samples and other objects from the week was successfully stimulating. Participants enjoyed seeing and handling these results, which brought the project to life.

Learning from the previous event, we worked with smaller groups and found the forum to be more natural and manageable. However, the lunch club co-ordinators had not communicated to members that this follow-up was taking place, so some regrettably had to leave.


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Feedback

4.21 The most effective method of obtaining feedback from participants was informal comments and conversation. Participants were happy to be evaluative face-to-face, but were less engaged and enthusiastic about writing comments down. There were different reactions to the questionnaire, as some individuals seemed to be tentative or confused, whilst others approached it confidently. The tick boxes provided us with statistics but although examples were given verbally, they were not written down. This would be something to think about when designing and executing future questionnaires. We asked the co-ordinator to fill in a different questionnaire after the following week’s meeting, which did provide very useful and timely comments.

The comments box only received 2 comments, since we needed to be more assertive with the card and pens, specifying what we wanted and assisting as appropriate. We picked up on these techniques later in the schools. With both the comments box and participants questionnaire we needed to be more hands-on, offering guidance and involving group discussion instead of an independent exercise. To ensure two-way communication, the outputs of the street design consultation and transport board-game are being fed back into research, specifically to Charles and Hebba at UWE and Peter Lansley, Director of SPARC.

Resources

4.22 The session at the lunch club was the cheapest of our three events, with the only resources needed being our time in planning and attending the event and travel costs of ourselves and the researchers Charles and Hebba from UWE to the lunch club. The only other items we needed at the event were available to us in the office, such as a flipchart, pens and an EPSRC banner.

There is extra cost associated with the elderly because we were happily asked to return for a follow-up visit to present what we did at the schools. Since we were asked to do this after our initial costing we had not factored it in at the start. There was also an overspend of £68.42 on top of our original costing of £55.40. This was due to underestimating Charles and Hebbas’ travel costs, which in turn was partly due to an unforeseen pre-event briefing of the board game, involving extra travel between UWE and Swindon.

4.23 A breakdown of costs, not including staff hours, for the main event and return visit is shown below. For more detail of changes to the budget, please refer to Appendix A-1.

Resources Cost

A4 street photos x6 £3.29

A3 colour map £1.08

Charles and Hebba travel £108.63

SPARC brochures x10 Free

Flip chart Free

Sharpie pens Free

Comments box Free

Camera Free

EPSRC banner Free

Pin board Free

Total £113.00


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4.24 Additional spend on a return "feedback" visit, taken from surplus budget:

Resources Cost

Taxi £5.70

Laminated problem sheet x2 £5.12

Total £10.82

4.25 Additionally to this, each Year in Industry Student was present for 3 hours at the event (a total of 15 hours), and Abi, Nat and Cole were present for 3 hours at the return visit, meaning a total of 24 hours directly associated with the event. For full details of time spent with pre-planning, please refer to Appendix A-2.

Description Hours

5 YinIs for main event 3 each

3 YinIs for return visit 3 each

Total 24


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5. Schools Engagement

Summary

5.1 The objectives for this activity were fully met, and in some cases exceeded. The overall responses were very positive, with the feedback from both teachers and children confirming this, for instance 97.5% of the participants said they would like the event to run again. There were a number of minor points for improvement raised, but overall the sessions were well planned and carried out. The key thing to be aware of is to let the sessions be exciting, to keep the children engaged and energised, but at the same time controlled, so the desired outcomes are achieved.

Objectives

• To promote the work and successes of EPSRC-related materials research to 100 children in Lawn, Lethbridge and Robert le Kyng Primary School.

• To enable 100 children from these schools, to enjoy and learn about applications of Materials science, through 3 ‘hands-on’ activities: making bouncing balls; making spaghetti and marshmallow towers; and a design competition.

• To encourage 100 children in these schools, to have an awareness of the requirements of the elderly (in relation to street design/accessibility) and for them to generate creative street designs to address these requirements, including incorporating materials within EPSRC’s remit.

Outcomes

• SPARC research, PAMELA, Bloodhound and invisibility cloak research promoted with at least 160 children in Lawn, Lethbridge and Robert le Kyng Primary School.

• 97% of these children enjoyed and learnt about applications of Materials science, through 3 ‘hands-on’ activities: making bouncing balls; making spaghetti and marshmallow towers; and a design competition.

• They also considered the problems of the elderly (see problem sheet in Appendix C-4) and produced 156 designs to address these problems incorporating materials including carbon fibre, acrylic and Kevlar.

Participant experiences

• Overall comments from teachers were very positive, with comments such as ‘the best day at school ever’ and ‘they really enjoyed it’. 97.5% of children said they would go to a similar event, whilst two-thirds gave it the top rating for overall enjoyment.

• Over 40% of the initial comments said their favourite activity was the bouncy balls, whilst 20% said it was building towers and 6% the design competition. 23% of comments said nothing could be improved.

• Two-thirds of the children also gave spaghetti towers and the bouncy balls the top rating for enjoyment, compared to less than a quarter for the other parts (introduction, design competition and conclusion).

• The biggest points for improvement were the tower building (18% of responses) and design competition (17%), whilst 13% of comments said more time was needed.

Participant impact

• 97% of the children could remember at least ‘something’ about the day, with 28% saying they remembered a lot, whilst all the teachers involved also said that the event sparked ‘some’ discussion during the following days.

• Several children remembered the science behind the activities, (about 5%), whilst several children could also remember examples of EPSRC-funded research mentioned, for instance the invisibility cloak, Bloodhound and plastic electronics.


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• All children collected an EPSRC-branded pencil, and prizes were also branded corporate gifts. Selena comic leaflets and NSEW bookmarks were also gratefully received. This should have continued to give EPSRC exposure post-event.

• Overall responses from teachers and children were very good, potentially leading to a greater appreciation an interest in the role science has to play in society.

Best Practice

• Good pre-event planning is very important to keep the schools informed and on-side. For example responses were limited from schools before proper event plans had been put in place. It is important to contact schools early and arrange a date, as their availability is limited.

• Becoming Science and Engineering Ambassadors has a lot of positives. It allows for free CRB checks, will allow for future engagement opportunities and the induction helps with planning the event, and introduces best practice for working with children, so overall it is highly recommended.

• Making sure timings are carefully considered is also important as schools will not allow you to overrun. Careful timetabling needs to be considered, just in case parts need to be cut, and also somebody needs to keep a track of time. In this case timings went well, because it was carefully planned.

• It is very important to keep the moments when you will be talking at the children to a minimum; otherwise they will easily lose interest. For instance instead of talking about the properties of materials we included a fun interactive game and we quickly got into the hands-on activities which the children really enjoyed.

• The science behind some of the activities was sometimes poorly explained or totally absent. An improvement would therefore be better consideration of how to communicate EPSRC-associated research and science to children and to include this more.

• A major positive was the competition element, and so this should be emphasised at the start more (as well as the fact everyone gets a prize). This really meant that children were enthusiastic and involved with the activities, and mean they were keen to do their best.

Activity Overview When and where

5.2 We visited three schools in the Swindon area from March 9th to March 11

th. On each

day 2 sessions were carried out, one in the morning and one in the afternoon, with a different year 6 (age 10-11) class in each. The schools, and timings, are shown below:

School Date Morning Session Afternoon session

Lethbridge Primary School 9th March 2009 0915-1200 1300-1505

Lawn Primary School 10th March 2009 0900-1130 1300-1515

Robert Le Kyng Primary School 11th March 2009 0915-1200 1300-1515

5.3 This meant that the morning sessions were longer than the afternoon sessions, although a break was allowed in the middle of the morning sessions (of 15-20 minutes).

When the sessions were carried out they lasted about 2 hours, leaving enough time to carry out all the planned activities in each session, with the exception of the decision to cut the clap-o-meter from the afternoon session of the 10th.

5.4 To ensure we had an adult leader per group of children, we enlisted the help of 5 Portfolio Managers: Amanda Chmura, Katherine Jarvis, Katie Blaney, Derek Gillespie and Susan Soulsby.


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Session timetable

5.5 The basic timetable of each session is shown in the table below, with more detail in the following paragraphs.


Pre-event preparation • Liaising with schools Weeks beforehand

Set-up • Setting up tables, posters etc. 30 minutes

Introduction • Introduction to EPSRC, NSEW and participants 0-5 minutes

Materials game • Introduction to materials and properties 5-10 minutes

Grouping • Splitting into groups 0-5 minutes

Activities* • 3 Workstation activities: o Bouncy Balls o Spaghetti Towers o Design Competition

• Peripheral activities: o Cornflour o Thermocolour Paper

60-75 minutes

Round-up • Linking to properties and EPSRC research 5-10 minutes

Prize-giving • Prizes given out for each activity 10-15 minutes

Feedback • Clap-o-meter and comments box 5-10 minutes

*Described in more detail in separate section below Pre-event

5.6 Before the event there was concern that school clothes could be messed up, so parents were asked to provide old shirts, and teachers were advised on the activities which would be carried out, in order to carry out their own health & safety risk assessment. They were also informed on the possibility of taking photographs, and the resources which would be required from the school (i.e. venue and tables).

Set-up

5.7 We arrived in time for setting up at around 0815-0830 each day. This involved measuring quantities for a couple of the activities; setting out tables; putting up posters (see Appendix C-3); and laying out resources. Also EPSRC-branded t-shirts were worn by all of us. (Please see Appendix C-5.)

Introduction

5.8 The event began with a short introduction from Nat, welcoming the children to the session. This also involved describing EPSRC and National Science and Engineering week; briefly describing the activities which would happen; and mentioning the day was a competition as well. At this point everyone introduced themselves, and made up one interesting fact to tell the children.

Materials game

5.9 After the introductions Kat began a ‘materials’ game, to introduce materials and properties to the children. She described what they had to do: move to the material (laid out as a poster mat with illustrative pictures, for instance a window for glass), which had the property she shouted out. They were given examples, talked through the materials available and then the game began. As the children worked through the list of properties they were asked to justify their choices, and describe what the properties were. (For a full description please refer to Appendix C-1). At the end they were also asked to continue to think about the properties of the materials they were using, as they went around the different activities.


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Grouping

5.10 After the game had finished the class was split into 6 groups (the groups having been decided by their teacher). They were assigned a group name and colour based on 6 gems (see Appendix C-2 for details), and given a name badge along with the corresponding sticky dot. The whole of the introduction took no longer than 10 to 15 minutes in total.

Activities

5.11 Once all the children had name badges the groups were split up, 2 were sent to each of the three activities: bouncy balls, spaghetti towers, and the design competition. Each activity took 20-25 minutes, and at the end of both groups at each activity were moved to the next activity, until each pair of groups had experienced each of the three activities.

If during the activity any of the groups finished early (which often happened with the bouncy balls activity), then they were shown two peripheral activities: cornflour and thermocolour paper. All these activities are described in detail below.

Round-up

5.12 Once the activities were concluded they were brought together as a class again for a round-up. This was lead by Kat, who used materials from across the activities to make the children consider properties once more. For instance: spaghetti is brittle; jelly babies dense but strong; carbon fibre is light and strong. Also the children were asked to consider why these properties are useful, for instance carbon fibre can be used for racing cars because it is very light but also strong.

Nat then concluded the round-up by describing some EPSRC-funded research. These were selected to be relevant to the activities and appealing to the children. The examples chosen were the design of jam jars for the elderly (SPARC research), and invisibility cloak research (John Pendry, Imperial College). The jam jar research was tied into the design competition (solving problems the elderly have), whilst the invisibility cloak has weird properties, like cornflour for instance, and is possible to weave into clothing.

Prizes

5.13 The next stage of the event was prize-giving. The children were moved around the different stations, and the winning group at each was presented with prizes. The prizes were all corporate gifts, and included: bouncy balls, yo-yos, highlighters and key rings.

The top 3 spaghetti towers were measured; the bouncy balls pitted against each other to see which bounced the highest; and one design from each group shown before the winning group was announced.

Feedback

5.14 The round-up concluded with a clap-o-meter (see Figure 5), where the loudness of the clapping/cheering by the children was translated into points for each activity, and finally Nat thanked the children for the day.

On the way out the Children were asked to write out comments in order to receive their prizes (pencils for everyone). They were asked for one comment on their favourite part (on green card), and one improvement (on red card). Once they were posted in the


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comments box they could collect their pencil and leave the event (go back to their classroom).

Figure 5 Clap-o-meter

Activities

5.15 Described in detail below are three workstation activities, and the peripheral activities:

1 . Bouncy balls 2 . Spaghetti towers 3 . Design competition 4 . Peripheral activities – cornflour and thermocolour paper

The workstations were carried out in parallel, and each group got to carry out each activity once. In total they took 20-25 minutes to carry out each. The peripheral activities were used if a groups finished early, which was often the case with the bouncy balls workstation. The accompanying posters, which contain learning points and instructions, can be found in Appendix C-3.

1. Bouncy balls

5.16 This involved each group producing one bouncy ball per person, using different ratios of materials (measured out by the activity coordinator). They were then supposed to test the balls, using fair testing, in order to select the groups ‘best’ ball, i.e. the one that bounced the highest. This would then go forward for the group competition, and the bounciest ball would win. The balls were also coloured according to the group (see


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Appendix C-2). This was quite a messy activity, so required old clothes, such as old ‘art shirts’.

The learning point behind this activity is the element of ‘fair testing’. The importance and application of fair testing was described and then carried out. The children were reminded that testing materials is something that scientists do regularly.

Figure 6 Bouncy balls activity

2. Spaghetti towers

5.17 The objective of this activity was to produce the tallest tower. Each group was split into 2, (2 or 3 people to a group), and given a supply of marshmallows, jelly babies and spaghetti. They were then told to build the tallest tower, using the spaghetti as struts, and jelly babies or marshmallows as joints. The tallest tower would be taken forward, and measured against the other groups, and the winning group would have the tallest unsupported tower.

The learning points included thinking about which materials to use for the joints – this should have meant strong but heavy jelly babies at the bottom and light marshmallows at the top – and the shapes they used. For instance triangles are a very strong shape, but use up materials quickly. They were also asked to think about stress and strain put on materials, and why this might mean brittle spaghetti might break.


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Figure 7 Spaghetti towers activity

3. Design competition

5.18 For this activity the children were given the outputs from the previous engagement with the elderly. They were shown example solutions, and asked to come up with some of their own, using the design template. For instance designing a new bus shelter or bench. They were also given samples of materials to include in their designs as appropriate. The children were asked to think in particular about the materials they used, and the properties they possessed, to make sure they were suitable. They were also given judging criteria, which can be found on the poster in Appendix C-3.

The children were shown EPSRC-funded research which was aiming to do a similar thing. PAMELA – The Pedestrian Accessibility and Movement Environment Laboratory, is an artificial street where the responses of the elderly to different environmental conditions are monitored. From these responses improvements can be made, like the children were doing. For copies of the problem sheet, example solutions, and design template please refer to Appendix C-4.


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Figure 8 Design competition activity

4. Peripheral activities – cornflour and thermocolour paper

5.19 If during the activity any of the groups finished early (which often happened with the bouncy balls activity), then they were shown two peripheral activities. These were trays containing cornflour, which displays dilatant properties, and thermocolour paper, which changes colour dependant on temperature.

They were allowed to play with the materials and describe the strange properties they possess (similar to the introductory game). The science behind their properties was also briefly described. Although posters for this activity were not produced, further details can be found in Appendix C-3.


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Figure 9 Peripheral activity – cornflour

Activity Evaluation

5.20 Presented below are the main evaluation points for each part of the session. These are described in more detail below. For copies of the questionnaires and full results please refer to Appendix C-6.

Feedback table


Pre-event • Arranged well in advance

• Teachers fully aware of arrangements

• STEMNET Induction useful

• CRB checks arrived late • Apply for CRBs earlier

Set-up • 30 minutes is plenty of time

• Tables were always available

• Enough people (3-4)

• Day 1 lacked set-up time because of assembly

• Inconsistent set up

• Plan layout more carefully

Introduction • Kept brief and concise

• Personal facts broke the ice – humour

• Perhaps still a bit boring

• No name for event!

• Come up with an event name

Materials game

• Enthusiastic and energised

• Got children thinking

• Encouraged participation

• Learning began - Malleable

• Definitions sometimes poor

• ‘Herd mentality’

• Generate proper explanations/examples

• Encourage free thinking

Grouping • Colours good • Keeping control when • Wait for all groups to be


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• Saved time on deciding names

• Teacher made groups – saved time

handing out badges

• Names strange and hard to remember

named before badge giving

• Use simpler names

Activities • Competition Element

• Enthusiasm – actually doing things

• Lack of enthusiasm on occasion

• Judging often poorly done

• Poster use was lacking

• Make more of prizes

• Plan judging better

• Make posters more attractive

Round-up • Sitting down – interaction high

• Using props to illustrate

• Tied up learning nicely

• Included relevant EPSRC research - brief

• Circle was often badly made

• Only a few children contributed

• EPSRC examples not so tangible – easy to forget

• Design more exciting demonstrations

Prizes • Bouncy Balls and yo-yos popular

• Not everyone liked their prizes

• Everyone should get a prize

• 1st day chaotic – all given at once

• Give out more of the best prizes

• Emphasise pencil at the end

• Prizes given after each activity judged

Feedback • Clap-o-meter funny and energising

• Clap-o-meter good intro to comments (thoughts)

• Comments easy to work out (green=good)

• Incentive to post comments

• Clap-o-meter order changes result

• Clap-o-meter not great for evaluation

• Not everyone gave a comment (a few were confused)

• Colour of pens bad

• 1st day collected a pencil then wrote comment – created a backlog

• Think about clap-o-meter order

• Use black pens only for comments

• Lay out pens and cards to collect, and then give out pencil when comment is posted

Overall • Everyone felt included

• We were “friendly”

• Doing things rather than just listening

• Kept within time constraints – flexible

• Debrief meeting after day 1 allowed for improvements

• Teachers enthusiastic

• Good transport arrangements

• Enough people

• Not enough time – from comments

• T-shirts couldn’t be read easily/unclear

• Timing was too flexible at times

• Cleaning up took longer than expected

• More time

• Design T-shirts more carefully

Bouncy Balls • Enjoyed – top in comments

• Balls the same colour as the teams

• Applied previous knowledge – fair testing

• Posters acted as good reminders

• They actually bounced!

• Not all the balls worked

• Made messy floors – but easy to clean up

• Quite often finished early – distracting

• Instruction cards too complex (1st day)

• Measuring takes too long (1st day)

• Colours too faded on 1st day

• Judging too chaotic

• Polymer science not explained

• Down to rolling technique – take more care

• Play with cornflour/paper

• Use verbal instructions

• Use free pouring – all balls different

• Add more food colouring

• Come up with fun demonstration to explain science

Spaghetti Towers

• Learning points came through – difference between marshmallow and jelly babies

• Temptation to eat materials

• Spaghetti snapped easily

• Some groups used more

• Dodgy materials all part of the challenge

• Ration resources


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• Enthusiastic – second in comments

• Wide range of ideas – creative

• Help and advice given

• Easy to judge

• Posters useful as an aid

than others

• Children get de-motivated easily

• Easily collapsed – often build too high too quickly

• Set up time lacking

• No use of existing prior knowledge

• Not always exciting

• Marshmallows unstable

• Help as much as possible with building/design

• More initial planning – give less time

• Finish 2 minutes early to allow set-up time

• Add a twist – has to hold a weight or artistic merit

• Consider using only jelly babies

Design Competition

• Nice problem sheet – clear, interesting, attractive

• Relevant – local

• Use of materials samples

• Creative – free rein

• Groups or individually

• Tangible objects – e.g. benches, bus stops

• Example sheets – did as expected

• Design sheet – drawings with annotations

• Length – not too long

• Round-up showed the favourites

• Not enough samples

• Judging was poor

• Being judged as a group was unclear

• Set-up varied – tables and chairs

• Get more samples

• Emphasise group more

• Ideally 2 tables per group, with chairs, and a middle table for supplies

Peripheral Activities

• Useful if a group finished early

• Cornflour interesting, messy – fun

• Paper fun and easy to explain

• Cornflour too messy

• Science behind cornflour not explained

• Paper gets messy easily

• Paper activity lacked structure

• Super-elastic wire was dangerous

• Deeper sides for trays

• Prepare explanation (poster)

• Move away from mess, and use after washing hands

• Prepare more (e.g. poster)

• Blunt ends of wire more

Detailed session feedback Pre-event

5.21 The pre-event tasks were carried out well. Things were prepared well in advance, and the schools were kept well informed of the planning. Teachers commented that the event was well organised, and there were no complaints in this respect.

All the EPSRC participants were inducted as Science and Engineering Ambassadors, through STEMNET. This was good, and the induction was especially useful. This also meant free CRB checks could be gained for all participants; however, in this case they didn’t arrive on time for the event. Therefore in the future it is advised that getting this arranged should be done a couple of weeks earlier (6 weeks before the event). Although in the case of the actual event CRB checks were not a necessity.

Set-up

5.22 The 30 minutes or so allowed for this was plenty of time. Everything which was required from the schools: a hall, tables, chairs etc, was available, due to pre-event communications. Four people were also considered sufficient for this activity, as the remaining 2-3 people arrived by taxi, about 10 minutes before the start of the event.


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On day 1 this set-up time was constrained due to a prior assembly. This meant there was only a couple of minutes to set-up, and was down to poor communication internally within the school. The possibility of an assembly should be kept in mind. Finally the set-up was often inconsistent. For instance, the number of tables varied, as did the number of chairs, the positioning of activities, and so on. It is therefore suggested that in the future a more rigid set-up structure is planned. E.g. 5 tables for the design competition, with 14 chairs, in a corner.

Introduction

5.23 The introduction was also successful, and 61% of children rated it and the materials game ‘good’. It was kept brief and concise, so as not to bore the children, and the interesting facts during personal introductions broke the ice and provided an element of humour.

The danger of slipping into a boring start is quite great, so one must be aware of it, and the importance of an exciting start should be recognised. Also a name for the event was missing, which made the introduction less powerful. In the future it is suggested that a fun name is thought-up and used in the introduction to keep the children interested and excited.

Materials game

5.24 The materials game was considered a good success. It got an enthusiastic reaction, and energised the children, getting them on their feet, and teachers commented that they especially enjoyed this introduction. It encouraged participation right from the start of the event, and really got the children thinking about the topic of the event: materials and properties. For instance they really got thinking about what ‘malleable’ meant, and what sort of applications different properties had.

The only downsides are obvious ones: the explanations of the properties could be difficult, and the ‘herd-mentality’ can be problematic. These can be somewhat alleviated by better pre-planning, including thinking up good examples or explanations, perhaps including demonstrations; and trying to encourage free thinking by emphasising the children who pick less obvious materials, but have good reasons for doing so. Another slight point to prevent early confusion is to have the material mats held up at the start so the children know in which directions to head straight away.

Grouping

5.25 Deciding on colours and names for groups saved time and it was then easy to recognise individual groups. However the names were often difficult to remember, difficult to spell, and didn’t particularly apply themselves to ‘materials’. Quite often in the end, groups ended up being called by their colour rather than their name. Therefore in the future more thought should be given to more appropriate names.

Initially it was thought that we may have to split the classes into groups. However on the first day it transpired the teacher had already done this. This saved time getting the children into groups, and it also meant ‘troublemakers’ could be kept apart, so this was continued throughout the other sessions. One problem we encountered on the first day was chaotic giving out of pens and name badges. They were being given out whilst the other groups were being given names. Therefore this was changed so that all the groups were named, before giving out pens and name badges.


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Activities

5.26 Detailed feedback for each activity is given below. Overall the element of competition was considered important, and so that should be emphasised, and also the children were very enthusiastic that they actually got to try things out rather than sit and listen.

On the other hand, the judging was, in general, inconsistent, and therefore judging criteria and methods should be more carefully considered. Also the posters were often under-used, and would probably be more effective if they were more attractive with more colour (they were printed in black and white).

Round-up

5.27 In the round-up it was considered that interaction was high, as Kat sat down in the circle and engaged well with the children. The use of props for illustrative purposes was also good. The round-up tied things up nicely, and allowed the children to calm down before the prize-giving. Finally it was also felt that the EPSRC research which was communicated was important to get across, but in a brief an exciting manner, which most of the time it was. 65% of children said they enjoyed (rated ‘good’ or better), the conclusion to the event.

The only drawbacks were that often the circle was poorly made, and so some children could be excluded, and as before only a few children would actively participate. It was also felt that making the EPSRC examples more tangible, perhaps with an exciting demonstration, or props, would have helped.

Prizes

5.28 The prize-giving, was perhaps the least well thought through part of the event. It was found that not everyone liked their prizes, and that some children felt everyone should get a prize. Although this would diminish the competition element, therefore it should be emphasised that everyone will get their prize on the way out (the pencils). However the yo-yos and bouncy balls were especially popular, and so in the future it is suggested that more of these are taken and given out as prizes.

Finally, on day one the prizes were given out in one lump at the end. However this lead to chaotic scenes, and therefore giving prizes out as each activity was judged was considered more satisfactory. This also allowed for tailored prizes, for instance: bouncy balls for the bouncy balls activity, highlighters for the design competition, and yo-yos for the tower competition.

Feedback

5.29 The final part of the event was planned slightly better. The clap-o-meter, was considered successful, as it was funny and energising, and began the children thinking about other feedback comments. However the actual results are less useful for the original purpose of evaluation, because the order in which the activities are announced massively changes the result.

In the first session, comment cards were given out, and the children collected pencils to write with. However this meant they got the incentive (the pencil), before posting their comments. It was also chaotic as there was an instant queue to get pencils. An improvement was made, by laying out the comments card with pens, and then the children collected the pencil as they posted their completed comments. This meant a more staggered giving-out of pencils, and a greater likelihood of receiving comments. Other issues included the wrong colour pens being given out, leading to difficulty in reading them. Not every child gave a comment, and sometimes they were confused


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between the green and red card, although the chance of this happening is difficult to reduce further, it is felt that green=good and red=bad is as clear as it can be.

Other/overall

5.30 Overall feedback for the session was that a vast majority of the children felt included; the presenters were seen as ‘friendly’ and fun; the children were happiest doing things rather than listening; the teachers were enthusiastic about the event; and that there were the correct amount of people there to run the session (6-7 people). 63% of the children gave the overall event the highest rating for enjoyment.

Other positives were that the event fitted easily within the time constraints, due to good planning, and the timings were flexible to cope with changes. For instance the 4th session had to be cut slightly short, but this was achieved by cutting out the clap-o-meter. A de-brief after the first day was also considered essential, as there were several minor points which came out and needed to be put right. A car for transporting half the people and the resources, and a taxi for the rest of the people was considered sufficient. Improvements could include increasing the length of the event, and perhaps including more activities, as this was in quite a lot of comments received. Also the t-shirts were not as well designed as desired, they were difficult to read and lacked overall clarity, and this is due to a lack of time pre-event to ensure they were designed properly. Finally the timing was inconsistent at times (some groups had more time than others on some activities), and cleaning up took longer than expected, though both these are minor points which organisers just need to be aware of. Just to emphasise how positive the feedback was, somebody from the Gloucestershire LEA, who was visiting one of the schools at the time, mentioned how he would have loved us to come along to Gloucestershire to run the activities as well.

Figure 10 Class photo (from Lawn primary school)


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Detailed Activity Feedback 1. Bouncy balls

5.31 The bouncy ball was the most enjoyable activity, and came top in the comments, in both most positive comments, and least negative ones. It also received the most positive overall rating, with 73% of children giving it the highest rating. This was for a variety of reasons including that children like to make a mess, the balls did actually bounce, and they had a chance to apply previous knowledge about fair testing.

It was also felt that colouring the balls according to team colour was useful, although (especially on day 1) the colours were often too pale. The borax solutions, with colouring, were pre-mixed (which saved time setting up), so all that was required was to add more food colouring. The posters acted as good reminders about how to make the ball, and the importance of fair testing; however they were a little under used as in the other activities. It would have also been good if the science behind the chemical reaction (polymers) had been described, but it was felt on a poster this would be too complicated. Therefore thought could be given to how to present polymer science in a fun way. It was realised on the first day the groups quite often finished this activity early, therefore they were shown the cornflour and thermocolour paper in between changing activities. This helped prevent them distracting other groups, as long as they were placed close together. Other improvements from the first day were the discarding of instruction cards, as they simply distracted the children, and didn’t actually help them. The children were talked through the activity instead, which also helped keep them engaged. Also the measuring took too long on the first day, when the ratios were fixed by the colours on the instruction card. However this was also improved when the cards were discarded, as the amounts could be free-poured (still in different ratios), which still meant everyone got a different ball mixture, and therefore fair testing could still apply. Other minor points were the need for better judging, it often got too chaotic, and the heights the balls bounced varied so much it was hard to pick a winner. Also not all the balls worked, but this was down to rolling technique, and the floors often got very messy, though if this was on a smooth floor (wood, plastic etc), then was easy enough to clean up. The main problem to be aware of was if the mess was on children’s feet and got outside the hall onto carpet.

2. Spaghetti towers

5.32 Spaghetti towers also got an enthusiastic response from children. It was second in terms of positive comments and 73% of children gave it the highest rating post event. However it also had the highest amounts of comments for improvement as although the majority of contestants did well, a fair few towers collapsed. Major plus points were that it allowed for a lot of creativity and different designs, and was easy to judge.

The learning points also came through, especially in the round up: spaghetti is brittle, marshmallow weak but light, and jelly babies strong but heavy. As well as the importance of using shapes correctly (triangles for structural integrity). However, though the posters were a useful aid, they were under-used as a learning aid mostly because the children wanted to get stuck in to the activity rather then reading about it first, a lot like many of us with instructions. Help and advice was vital in this activity, too often children would start straight away, build the base in a poor and unstable way, and end up with a collapsed tower. This


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emphasised the importance of planning at the start, and so more care should be taken to avoid children jumping straight in. The towers possibly collapsed too easily on occasion (Figure 11), this was amplified by the fact spaghetti broke easily, and marshmallows were weak joints. Although it is considered that these factors were part of the challenge, it was easy for groups to become de-motivated, so perhaps stronger materials could be used in the future.

Figure 11 Collapsed spaghetti tower

There was also a lack of set-up time for this activity, meaning at the start children were quite often shuffled into a corner. As with the bouncy balls this needs to finish a few minutes early to allow for setting up materials for the next group. Another major problem was that some groups used vastly more materials than others. Originally they were to be rationed, but perhaps because the rations were seen as unrealistic, they were totally abandoned. In the future more thought should be given to realistic, but fair rationing. Final points include the temptation to eat the materials; the lack of use of prior knowledge (as opposed to the bouncy balls and fair testing); and the activity losing excitement for those children who had done it before. Perhaps adding a twist such as the structure having to hold a weight, or an artistic element, could add to the enjoyment.

3. Design competition

5.33 This activity was important for the whole event to have a common thread through the three separate parts, and therefore this was an integral part. The activity also provided a good balance, from the messiest activity (the bouncy balls) through to the design competition, there should be something for all children to enjoy. So although it was considered the least enjoyable activity overall by the children, this is only in comparison


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to the messier activities, and it still had many positives overall, and was therefore considered a good success.

The initial preparation for this activity was good, the example solutions, and especially the problem sheet, were well designed and colourful, and very useful as aids. Also the use of material samples was very good, and it would have been useful to have even more samples of different materials, for the children to experience and subsequently use in their designs. The problems were tangible which also helped. They were local (having been derived from a consultation in a local lunch club), and the objects were tangible, for instance designing a new bench or bus stop were popular choices. This activity also gave the children a free rein to be as creative as possible, and the ability for them to choose how they worked, as groups or individually was also considered very good. The design templates were also useful, and meant the children were well aware of what they had to do. There were no children who didn’t come up with designs in the form we wanted – pictures with annotations. The length of time was about right for this activity; rarely did groups finish early, or not have a chance to finish at least one or two designs. This activity worked best when children were made to think carefully about their designs, for instance what materials to make things out of, (they usually have to be waterproof and robust), what size the design is, and exactly how it works. The best thought through designs were the ones chosen for display at the end, so the children could continue to think about the most appropriate design solutions. The major problem encountered was the lack of clear judging criteria. Although the children were given criteria at the start, and on the poster, the actual judging ignored this, (ensuring the prize was given to a different group from the other activities), and on a few occasions children realised this. More thought needs to be given on how to judge this in the time frame. Children were also unclear on whether the competition was judged on individual or group entries, so this needs to be stated at the start. Finally the set-up varied day to day, and after the event it has been concluded the most favoured set up is for 5 tables: a middle one for design materials (pens, pencils etc), and two either side for each group. The activity also ran smoother when children were allowed to sit around the tables. Once again the posters were under-used, especially the PAMELA poster, which should have been emphasised more, and would have got more attention if printed in colour.

4. Peripheral activities – cornflour and thermocolour paper

5.34 The peripheral activities were considered very useful if groups finished early (especially from the bouncy balls), and although they weren’t rated directly by the children, they did get a lot of positive comments. However, they were initially going to be used in the introduction, to introduce the unusual properties they have. There was also to be another material, super-elastic wire.

But when it came to the event it was decided there would not be enough time to use them in the introduction. This also meant that the children would be doing more and listening less to us (keeping their attention better), and also the problems of how to present them would be lessened. So in hindsight this was a good decision. The super-elastic wire was not used, because it was considered the ends of the wire were too sharp, and therefore the wire too dangerous. This means either the ends should be blunted more, or the wire should have been discarded totally, as it was. The two activities left were both fun, and both ensured the children continued to think about properties. The cornflour was the most fun, being the messiest, whilst the paper


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was also good, and was easy to explain well. However the cornflour was perhaps too messy, deeper sided trays should be used in the future, and the science and applications behind it were not explained. If the initial planning had been better this could be alleviated (with a poster for instance). It was also decided that food colouring in the cornflour wasn’t necessary. The thermocolour paper easily got messy, which happened on day 1, so it should only be introduced after the children have washed their hands, and should be kept a fair distance from the cornflour. Once again this activity lacked structure, because of a lack of pre-planning.

Resources

5.35 The schools activities was set to be the most expensive of the three events as it was aiming to engage with the highest number of people (180 children)

A large proportion of the initial planned budget for the schools was £400 set aside for CRB checks. However, by becoming Science and Engineering Ambassadors we were able to get these checks for free, reducing our costs quite substantially.

The rest of the budget allocated for schools was for transport for us to the venues and ingredients and supplies for each of the activities.

5.36 In total we spent £284.70 on the schools events. This looks initially like a large under spend considering we laid aside £653.66. However, when the £400 reduction for CRB checks is factored in it actually means we spent £31.04 more on the activities than planned. This was due to getting through marshmallows and jelly babies quicker than expected and so spending more than expected on these. We also bought more materials as samples than we had initially planned, which counts for some of this extra cost.

5.37 A full breakdown of the final costs is shown below, not including man hours. For a detailed breakdown showing changes in the budget and including required materials with no associated cost, please refer to Appendix A-1.

Category Cost

Spaghetti Towers £39.30

Bouncy Balls £24.65

Design Competition £23.92

Posters £33.90

T-shirts £39.44

Transport £46.46

Smart materials £62.16

Other £14.87

Total £ 284.70

5.38 In addition to this and shown below, is the amount of man hours also used over the three days. This does not include any time spent pre-event planning etc, this is shown in Appendix A-2.

Staff Hours

4 YinIs (setting up) 24 each

1 YinI (arriving later) 21

5 PMs 7 each

Total 152


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6. General Public Engagement

Summary

6.1 The objectives for this activity were met and in some places even exceeded. We engaged with 120 different people, mostly from Swindon and the surrounding Wiltshire area, 80% of whom had never heard of The Research Councils or EPSRC before. With these people we discussed various aspects of EPSRC, ranging from the other public engagement activities we had done for National Science and Engineering week to currently funded EPSRC research and exciting projects, such as the Bloodhound project.

Objectives

• To raise awareness of 100 people in the Swindon community, potentially unaware of the Research Councils, about EPSRC and currently funded research in the UK through manned displays in the Brunel Centre

• To communicate to 100 people the outputs from previous engagement activities by displaying local school children’s design work on infrastructure for the elderly and models of “spaghetti towers”.

• Raise public awareness of 20 people of the Bloodhound project and EPSRC’s role in their development

Outcomes

• Talked about EPSRC and its role to 120 people, mostly local people from Swindon and the surrounding Wiltshire area, 96 of whom had never heard of The Research Councils or EPSRC before.

• Previous engagement activities and the aims of National Science and Engineering week were communicated to the 120 people we engaged with.

• 14 Bloodhound 1k club leaflets were handed out to people particularly interested in the project.

Best practice

• People were more inquisitive than we had expected, we often had people approach us because they were interested to know what we were there about. This proved to be quite surprising because we had expected to have to work hard to get people interested initially

• We found that doing something interesting at the stand, such as building a large spaghetti tower, is a good way to attract people’s interest and bring them to the stand to see what it’s about.

• Having free gifts to give away, such as pens, pencils, highlighters etc was a good way to attract people because offering free pens to passers by often brought them to the stand and engaged them in a discussion.

• One issue we experienced was that not all interested members of the public were enquiring into relevant aspects of EPSRC, for example helping to choose GCSE subjects for their son. Although we were happy to help with these sorts of enquiries because we knew and had experience in them, they were not directly significant to our presence there.

• The misconception that we were going to try sell things to them was off-putting for some shoppers and despite promising people we weren’t a lot of people didn’t believe us and ignored us because of this.


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Activity Overview

When and where

6.2 We set up a stand at the Brunel shopping centre in Swindon on Friday the 13th March.

We then manned this stand throughout the day to engage with shoppers about EPSRC.

Event timetable

6.3 Below is a brief timetable of the event, greater detail is provided beneath.


Pre-event • Liaising with Brunel Centre

• Planning and Preparing

Weeks Beforehand

Set-up • Setting up display stand

• Laying out literature

• Building Spaghetti tower

0800-0900

Running the stand • Talking to members of the public o Information on the week o Information on EPSRC

0900-1730

Set-up

6.4 We arrived at the Brunel to set up at around 8.00am. This involved finding everything that had been couriered to the Brunel the previous day and moving it to the area where our stand was. The location of the stand is shown in Appendix D-1.

6.5 We set up the stand so that the display boards covered what we had done previously in the week, containing photos of sessions at the schools and lunch club, example solutions from the design competition at the schools, quotes from some of the comments we had asked children to give us at the end of the sessions all surrounding a large print out of the problem sheet that we took to the schools for the design competition.

6.6 In front of the stand we had a long table, covered with an EPSRC branded table cloth. On the table we placed a series of literature, including copies of both Pioneer 1 and 2, Engineering tomorrow leaflets, Bloodhound 1k club leaflets, SPARC brochures and some EPSRC branded stationery to attract people in. We also had some of the thermo-colour paper that we took to the schools to use as a demonstration as and when necessary.

6.7 In front of the table we had the tallest spaghetti tower from the schools as a feature to start conversations with and to either side were banners. One was the standard EPSRC rebranded banner and the other a Bloodhound banner that was used at the Pioneers09 event in London.

A diagram of the proposed poster board is shown in Figure 12.


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Figure 12 Poster board layout

Running the stand

6.8 The shopping centre officially opened at 9.00, so we had the stand ready by then and kept it manned until 17.30. We always made sure there were at least three of us at the stand at any one point. However, at busier times (such as lunchtime) all five of us manned the stand to maximise the number of people we talked to throughout the day.

6.9 We encouraged people to talk to us through a variety of ways and opening lines. These included offering people pens, asking people if they wanted to help build a spaghetti tower that we put together throughout the day, asking people if they had heard of the research councils or of certain projects (such as Bloodhound) before or if they knew it was National Science and Engineering Week.

6.10 Once people were engaged in a discussion with one of us we generally tried to talk about why we were in the Brunel, mentioning National Science and Engineering Week and its aims, what we had done previously in schools and at the lunch club and EPSRC’s role, including some examples of funded projects.

6.11 If people were particularly interested in specific aspect of the conversation we invited them to take some literature about that: For interest in research we provided Pioneer magazines; with bloodhound we were able to supply 1k club leaflets and highlight their website; for interest in elderly specific interests we handed out SPARC brochures.


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Activity Evaluation

6.12 Presented below are the main evaluation points for each part of the session. These are described in more detail below.

Feedback table


Pre-event • Began planning early

• Found a good venue

• The plan for set-up changed multiple times

• Make the extent of the space available clearer initially

Set-up • Arrived in plenty of time

• Looked good when set-up

• Not fully thought through beforehand so took quite a long time

• A ‘mock stand’ to test layout

Running the stand

• Handing out of free gifts attracted attention

• Spaghetti tower attracted attention

• Chatting went well - we went through the week and EPSRC

• People thought we were trying to sell them things

• Attracting people was difficult

• Mention that we aren’t trying to sell anything

• Reinforce positive behaviours – think about more attractions

Detailed Session Feedback Pre-event

6.13 The major positive of the pre-event preparation was that the venue and date were planned well in advance, and so we were certain of getting a stand space. Also the venue was chosen well, due to some prior research about the alternatives, and the daily foot-flow.

6.14 The only real issue prior to the event concerned the size of our stand. Before going to the Brunel we went through a couple of iterations of plans for how to set up the stand that we had to change due to what space was available.

6.15 Originally we had hope to have either a space at a ‘crossroads’ in the shopping centre (so that people would come from four sides) where we could set up four tables surrounding a square of display boards, where each side of the square would show a different aspect of our project, as shown below:

Boards

Balls

Spaghetti Tower

Design Competition

EPSRC stuff


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6.16 However, once we had a look in the Brunel we realised there aren’t any spaces that fit this criteria so we changed the plan slightly hoping to have a wide space across a walkway, where we could have a couple of display boards dotted across an open space that shoppers could walk through, shown below:

Again this was not feasible because it would have taken up too much space.

6.17 This led to us deciding just to have a small stand comprised of a display board and a table, which we could stand in front of and talk to passers by. To cope with this lesser display space we decided to only display our previous activities for NSEW on the boards but then had EPSRC literature on the table in front and one of the rebranded EPSRC banner to one side and a Bloodhound banner on the other side to advertise the research council.

6.18 Although these changes meant that we couldn’t display as much information on boards as we had initially hoped it didn’t have much of an adverse effect on the day because not many of the people we talked to really looked at the stand for details, its main purpose seemed to be to attract people for us to talk to.

Set-up

6.19 On the day those of us who were to set up (Tom, Kat and Nat), arrived with plenty of time, which allowed them to set up a professional looking stand (see Figure 13). However it did take slightly longer than ideally given that details had not been thought through previously and items not prepared. To alleviate this in the future a ‘mock stand’ could be prepared, so that the layout is 100% agreed, and all materials prepared.

Figure 13 Stand at Brunel Centre

Shoppers

Display Boards


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Running the stand

6.20 We quickly encountered a couple of problems in approaching people in the shopping centre. The most obvious one was that people seemed to think we were trying to sell them something. This meant we quite frequently mentioned straight away when approaching a passerby that we weren’t trying to sell them anything.

6.21 Another was that most people seemed either too busy or just not interested enough to stop by and talk to us. The most effective way to get around this was to hand out free pens, this was an easy way to bring people to the stand and ask them a few questions to get a conversation going.

6.22 One effective method of bringing people in that Cole came up with on the day was to start building a new spaghetti and jelly baby tower. This gave us something to invite passers-by to join in with and help build, which brought a few people in to our stand. Later in the day this tower was particularly high (Figure 14) and that in itself bought people to the stand, asking questions such as ‘is that really made of spaghetti?’ or ‘was that really made by children?’

Figure 14 Spaghetti tower

6.23 However attracting people was still quite difficult, and so reinforcing these positive ways of attracting passers-by would be something to think of in the future. This could include other methods, for instance initially we thought of using cornflour in a bucket, and inviting them to ‘grab a pound’ (obviously this is very difficult due to the properties of


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the cornflour). However this was considered to messy to be used, although similar methods would have been useful.

6.24 However once people were attracted the response from them was very good. We engaged with 120, compared with our original aim of 100. Of these 120 people most were from Swindon and the surrounding Wiltshire area and so it was surprising that only 20% had heard of EPSRC or the research councils in general and most of those weren’t too sure what we did, they just knew we were a government body that had its offices by the railway station.

We were successful in both explaining about EPSRC and the work it does, as well as what we had done during the week. Several of them took away Pioneer magazines or other information the overall response to the EPSRC-funded research described (for instance Bloodhound), was very positive. They also reacted positively to the work done with the children, and many of them mentioned how important they felt it was that we good young people engaged and interested with science. This local aspect often acted as a good draw into the stand, before we began chatting about EPSRC.

Resources

6.25 For the general public event in the Brunel a large the majority of the budget was set aside for renting the space. We were told this would cost around £250 although we weren’t given the actual figure of £241.50 until after our initial costing, hence the difference.

A factor that was forgotten about when planning the budget was the cost of a courier to take our equipment to the centre. However, since the stand was a fair bit smaller than we had initially planned our printing costs were substantially lower than originally expected and so the cost of the courier was covered by this. Because we didn’t have to spend money on the CRB checks the event at the Brunel became our most expensive event, although we only spent £292.31 on this event compared to our original costing of £366.23. A full breakdown can be found in Appendix A-1.

Category Cost

Space Leasing £30.00

Courier £241.50

Printing £20.81

Total £292.31

6.26 Finally the total hours associated with setting-up and manning the stand came to about 8 hours for each YinI student, equating to 40 hours in total.


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7. Media

7.1 We identified various methods to generate interest in our public display stand on Friday 13

th March, and to gain as much public exposure as possible. It was hoped that we

would gain coverage in at least one paper as well as exploring the possibility of coverage on a radio station, with anything from a short interview to a piece on their news bulletin.

7.2 Prior to the events, an external press release was written by us and approved by the Press Office (see Appendix A-3). This was sent to various media outlets and a week later we had follow-up phone calls with the press offices to gauge their interest in publishing the articles or providing some form of media coverage on the events.

7.3 One newspaper, The Swindon Advertiser were interested and arranged a reporter to come out to one of the school’s workshops to take photos and talk to us and participants. BBC Radio Wiltshire/Swindon also showed interest in the events and requested the article and additional details be re-sent. They said they would follow up this interest with a phone call but unfortunately nothing came of this.

7.4 However the school events did receive two separate mentions in the Swindon Advertiser: firstly the article written by the reporter who had come to the schools (See Appendix A-4); and secondly a journalist mentioned the event in his column the next day (See Appendix A-5). In addition the first article was available on their website, taking the main story on the day of publishing. Unfortunately certain details about the Brunel Centre engagement were not reported correctly and so we had to ask them to be corrected.

7.5 Following the event Charles and Hebba gained coverage in the UWE bulletin covering the elderly consultation event, this is shown below in Figure 15.

Figure 15 UWE Bulletin article

7.6 We were able to get twice as much exposure in the local paper as we had hoped, in addition to the unexpected coverage on the internet, however we were unsuccessful in


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securing radio coverage. One reason for this was the lack of interest from some of the local radio shows which only managed to confirm government concerns that currently the British Public don’t have an active interest in science with some stations saying the event “didn’t fit” with the culture of their station, or they felt they “had insufficient room” to facilitate the feature.

7.7 A second reason may stem from the time period of contacting the press offices. The article was sent on the 18.02.09 with the events commencing 27.02.09 which allowed 9 days during which we anticipated the stations would be able to allocate time to cover the event. We hadn’t previously appreciated how unresponsive the stations would be or the effort involved getting the coverage desired.


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8. Future Implications

Internal Impact

8.1 One of the original objectives of this project was to contribute to the Public Engagement Programme’s initiative to encourage Research Council employees’ participation in engagement events with the public.

8.2 Through the project ourselves and 5 Portfolio Managers (PMs) have become STEM (Science, Technology, Engineering and Maths) Ambassadors, and in the process obtained CRB checks. This scheme is run by STEMNET

3, and encourages volunteers

of all ages to enthuse young people about Science and Engineering. It supports ambassadors with organising and carrying out science themed interactive events with young people.

8.3 One of the future implications internally could be that these PMs, as part of a larger scheme, carry out engagement activities and so it was important for us to get their opinions on any future activities. Several of the PMs had engaged in similar activities before, examples including running a stand in a shopping centre; a NOISEmaker

4; and

various other activities whilst they were at university. This suggests that some staff may already have had experience of public engagement, and may therefore be interested in continuing this in their current role.

8.4 They broadly agreed of the importance of such activities, and especially agreed that it is important to increase public awareness of the role of research councils, given it is taxpayers’ money being spent, as well as to improve the public perception of science (especially amongst children), to ensure science is enthusiastically supported. They also felt it was key to promote not just EPSRC, but scientific research in general, and so trying to keep researchers involved was seen as important.

8.5 The PMs felt that although public engagement wasn’t core to their jobs, communications skills are a key requirement, and so by participating in activities with different audiences, it would help them to develop effective communication techniques. Other relevant skills which could be used include facilitation skills, (trying to keep focus and lead groups); and skills developed whilst planning and organising events.

8.6 All the PMs felt there was a definite opportunity to open up public engagement activities to staff across EPSRC. They felt that apart from the skills above, the event also helped with internal communication, because by working with people from other parts of the organisation they got to know them better and would feel more comfortable with working with them in the future. However there were concerns about forcing staff to take part; ensuring enough time was available (perhaps by including it in the job scope); and that there needed to be coordination of activities (it was suggested that somebody should be appointed as the coordinator or the activities).

8.7 Feedback was very positive from all the PMs, and all of them said that if they had the opportunity to take part in a similar activity again then they would, in both the planning and participation of events.

8.8 The dissemination of best practice in the bistro may also encourage other staff, not directly involved or affected by our project, to partake in similar activities. Our personal learning outcomes can be shared, allowing others to benefit from those experiences, which may ultimately improve EPSRC’s and the Research Councils’ engagement activities with the public.

3 http://www.stemnet.org.uk/home.cfm 4 http://www.noisemakers.org.uk/


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8.9 Through the experience of carrying out public engagement, we have also gained further appreciation of engaging an audience in a subject that we’re passionate about; working with different generations affected by our work; and the value of input from the users of research. We were also reminded of the responsibility that researchers have to carry out public consultation as part of good citizenship, and from here some or all of us may choose to continue in activities as STEM Ambassadors or other engagement activities. We have highlighted that the structure of the event worked well and could be adapted for future use by ourselves.

8.10 We hope that the successes delivered through this project are an indication to the organisation of the benefits these types of activities can have on the research councils and the general public. This may assist the introduction of a new outward facing culture of the research councils through which experience and skills are utilised not just internally but externally where the Swindon community benefit.

Ethical and Societal Impact

8.11 When planning this project, we wanted to be cutting across different generations and societal groups in the community. Thus we chose to focus on accessibility in transport and street design, because it is of underlying importance to the whole community, and would create joined-up thinking between the elderly and children. This allowed us to open up the minds of our audiences to inclusive design and research for a holistic society. The consultations have also allowed us to ensure EPSRC’s thinking is informed by public attitudes and views, in line with the Public Engagement team’s objectives.

8.12 Impacts of our project on the elderly include a change of attitude towards science, consultation and involvement in events such as those we ran. Some participants expressed that they already had an interest in technological progress, but had never thought that their voice could be heard and make a difference to research. Others identified with scientific research for the first time and therefore became more open and amenable to learning and awareness. Overall they reacted positively, wanting to be more informed about research and/or involved in consultation.

8.13 We talked about cutting-edge research that shifts our cultural prioritisation of the car to pedestrians; and the school children designed streets, mindful of all users and particularly their grandparents’ generation. It was especially useful for the children to understand how, through science, they can solve the problems that other generations or communities face and improve the quality of life for people. The elderly were very impressed with the fresh ideas coming from young minds and, as marginalised users of existing streets and transport systems, were pleased and interested in designs catering for their needs. There was hope that future society could be more accommodating of the expanding elderly population.

8.14 The other main impact on the children will hopefully be an increased enjoyment and interest in science, and therefore a contribution to the Public Engagement team’s objective of sustaining future people flow into engineering and physical sciences. It seems likely that the enjoyment they had on the day will mean the chances of them continuing with science in their school career will increase, and therefore the likelihood of them taking up science later in life might too. If this is the case then this will be a positive outcome of the event, but measuring the impact which can be directly attributed to this event is not possible.

8.15 Finally it was interesting to see that several children remembered examples of EPSRC research, be it the invisibility cloak or roll-up TVs. Therefore their general attitude towards science and research will hopefully have been improved, and even if they don’t go into science, they will understand and appreciate the role it has to play within society.


48

8.16 At the Brunel Centre, the general public took up the baton in seeing the potential for inclusive design through EPSRC-funded research. They were also impressed by the children’s work, which considered the whole community, and were keen to spread the word and ensure the future supply of engineers and scientists. Swindon Borough Council will receive this report and may choose to act on the findings of our project, and in addition Peter Lansley (Director of SPARC), Charles Musselwhite, and the PMs in charge of portfolios including healthcare and accessibility will also receive the relevant and useful outputs from our findings. At all stages of the event we have managed to fulfil the Public Engagement objective of ensuring the public is informed about developments, achievements and impacts of EPSRC-funded engineering and physical sciences research.


49

9. Evaluation of Group

9.1 Overall the group worked well together, which meant we kept to a tight budget, kept to schedule, and ran successful events. The key aspects included: brainstorming; effective meetings; delegation and communication; and control of deadlines, budgets and people hours.

How the Group Worked

9.2 Initially the brainstorming was done chaotically and without much thought as to the aim or objectives, however with the help of our Mentor (Kate Miller), we soon began to think carefully about what sort of events could be run and why, in a structured way. An initial brainstorm thinking about target age groups; mediums; venues; and occupations or interests of different groups was especially useful for us to come up with the right ideas.

9.3 Throughout the planning stages we had roughly weekly meetings, which had agendas, prepared by Kat, in order to structure them. Although these meetings were often informal, the agendas ensured we were kept on track, and didn’t overrun or get stuck on specific issues. It also allowed for minutes to be drawn up to keep track of progress, and to identify and assign actions.

9.4 Once we had decided what we were going to do for our project we thought it would make sense to have an individual leading on each aspect of the project and split ourselves up based on certain strengths or advantages. For example, having grown up in Swindon, Nat could make good use of strong links with the school he attended and knew which other schools would be appropriate for us to approach.

This delegation also allowed for individual team members to keep focused, and allowed for clearer planning. It also meant that during external communications there was one point of contact, which reduced confusion, and meant that we were all clear on what we were supposed to be doing.

9.5 When joint working was required, for instance to produce the presentation and this report, meetings and communication were also vital. Generally communication was good, and work was completed to schedule and in the correct form, however on occasions work was completed slightly late and not always in a standardised format. This can be put down to internal communication, and so in the future it is important for us to remember to set deadlines, and to ensure that what is required is clearly laid out and communicated, before the work is started.

Timing

9.6 Deadlines for this project were key, given that National Science and Engineering Week is a set date, and pre-arranged events could not be put back. Therefore keeping to deadlines and ensuring plenty of flexibility was important.

9.7 To ensure we were keeping to schedule we met weekly, where we each gave updates on where we were with each part of the project and could ask others for help or inspiration if an obstacle arose. It also meant that we could balance our workloads, so if one person was particularly busy with other work at any point they could let the rest of us know in a meeting and someone else could share the work to compensate. Similarly if anyone was seen to be slipping behind schedule, this could be recognised and appropriate action taken.

9.8 In initial stages a Gantt chart was produced to show overall deadlines and key dates. Although this wasn’t rigidly stuck to, it gave us an idea of when things needed to be arranged, and reassured us that the time constraints were realistic. The flexibility


50

allowed here also meant that if one part of the project took longer than expected, then other things could be moved forward to compensate, and so as mentioned previously there were no major problems.

Resources General

9.9 Resources were assigned to individual events, and agreed overall as a team, so for detailed information please refer to individual sections, and for a detailed breakdown please refer to Appendix A-1. The budget overall was managed well, and costs didn’t spiral out of control because we remained conscious of them.

9.10 In considering costs we tried to keep them down to a minimum, for instance all the school activities involved cheap materials widely available in high street shops. We also tried to keep the budget flexible, whilst ensuring we didn’t overlook major costs. The biggest cost in the end was leasing space for a display in the Brunel Centre, which came to roughly £250.

9.11 Because of the careful budgeting initially we didn’t keep a tight check on costs throughout, although there was a resource register which was updated regularly, and costs were kept in mind during the weekly meetings. Any unforeseen costs were raised and noted, but as none of them were major they weren’t carefully scrutinised. If a larger and more expensive event was planned this would have to be more carefully controlled.

9.12 The overall budget is shown below, with projected costs, actual costs, and the difference. Overall we were £374.46 under the initial budget we had factored for though this was primarily because of the £400 we managed to save by getting free CRB checks.

Event Projected Cost Actual Cost Difference

Elderly Lunch Club £ 55.40 £ 123.82 £ 68.42

Schools £ 653.66 £ 284.70 -£ 368.96

General Public £ 366.23 £ 292.31 -£ 73.92

Total £ 1,075.29 £ 700.83 -£ 374.46

People

9.13 The main cost of the event was actually in people time. The estimated man-hours worked are shown briefly below, with a more detailed breakdown Appendix A-2. This was not considered that much initially, and was not planned in detail. Also a careful check was not kept and so the actual hours worked will vary.

9.14 However most of these hours were involved in the planning of the event, rather than the actual running, and given that one of the main aims of the event for us personally was to gain experience working as a group and to plan such an event, then most of these hours can be seen as valuable for personal development. Also, given that we were planning the project from scratch, this time will have been greater than if similar events were run again.

9.15 Overall we estimate about 500 man hours were spent on the project, with at least half of this being planning and organising the events. 50 Hours of this were Portfolio Managers’ time, with the rest being Year in Industry Students.

Part of the Event YinIs Hours PMs Hours Total Hours

Planning/Preparation 278 13 291

Elderly Lunch Club 24 24

Schools 117 35 152

Brunel 40 40

Total 462 53 515


51

10. Personal Development

Group Development

10.1 The main development opportunity was for all of us to work as a group in order to run a large event, and to develop all the skills involved with that including: brainstorming ideas; organising and running good meetings; delegating tasks; putting together joint presentations, and keeping communication good between us. The experience of organising and running such an event, as part of a larger team, has been valuable to all of us.

10.2 We also learned how best to approach people with minimal intrusion and maximum politeness so as to establish a rapport, gain their attention and engage them with what we had to say. We listened to their inputs to the conversation and noted the best ones.

10.3 We learned how to better target our audience – the children were a lot more receptive to simpler terminology and plenty of enthusiasm, whereas the elderly seemed to prefer friendly tonality and understood more complex terms. Due to the broad spectrum of abilities within the public – it was necessary to adapt complexity and tone depending on the person you were speaking to at the time – adjusting to what you thought they would feel comfortable talking about.

Personal Development: Cole

10.4 I now understand a lot more about varied audiences. Within this project we dealt with large and small groups of children, the elderly and the general public and it was interesting to see and try the different approaches adopted to engage them to best effect.

10.5 It was a pleasure to work with the other Year in Industry Students and there were times when our teamwork was impeccable and planning immaculate, such as at the schools where we had backup plans in case anything overran – communicating to each other timings and activities to switch to when that actually happened.

10.6 Teamwork was imperative; everybody had to pull together when it counted most and we did. We all had out specific roles to play – for instance at the school events Nat and Abi ran the design competition, Kat the interactive games, I ran the spaghetti towers and Tom the bouncy balls – so as well as working together within our specific responsibilities and with the portfolio managers aiding us, we also had to pull together to make the whole event run smoothly, on time and with maximum enjoyment!

Personal Development: Nat

10.7 Personally I have learnt how to effectively organise an event, from conception to fruition. This includes several aspects: generating good contacts and writing formal e-mails; dealing with both internal and external contacts; putting together and planning an event with a clear structure; and evaluating events.

10.8 Generating an initial list of contacts was not too difficult, and required finding suitable points of contact. This was also one of the first times I had sent out formal e-mails, so I have gained confidence that I have the skills to do so. It was also a steep learning curve to try and ensure responses are gained quickly, and so the importance of keeping deadlines clear was highlighted for me.

10.9 Similarly when dealing with internal and external contacts, I have learnt to appreciate the value of clear e-mails, to prevent mis-communication, and the importance of


52

alerting people early, but with detail at the same time. Clear communication has been key.

10.10 I have also learnt how to effectively organise an event, both individually, and as a group. Individually I have had to draw up clear plans and schedules, and arrange suitable meetings and delegation, which highlights the requirement for clear timetables and responsibilities during an event. As a group we learnt of the importance of regular update meetings, which were properly organised, and how to share responsibility.

10.11 Finally I now fully appreciate the importance of both having a clear aim and objectives, and then the importance of evaluating the outcomes in response to these. Objectives have to be clear and specific, or else the event will be a mess of competing aims; whilst the evaluation is key to enable learning outcomes to be built upon, and mistakes recognised.

Personal Development: Kat

10.12 Through taking lead on the project, the importance of communication has been highlighted. I was able to apply the techniques described on various learning and development courses EPSRC provided and appreciated for myself the importance of communicating with each individual team member in their preferred style. For example some team members were quite analytical and produced large amounts of detail while others remained fairly relaxed and fed back the bare essentials on their individual events. In future I will look to quickly identify these individual traits and utilise their preferred methods of working during the project.

10.13 A personal challenge I have previously found when working in teams has been my ability to delegate. A project of this size required large amounts of responsibility to be released to team members. Although I initially found it frustrating and challenging, particularly when I had fixed ideas in my head on how to approach activities, over time I began to appreciate the value an individual’s creativity can bring to a project. Learning points I can take forward are to be more willing to trust others in their decisions and encourage a culture of creativity and consultation where appropriate in the project.

10.14 Having only ever organised activities and events on a smaller scale and with much more assistance, I never realised the amount of time taken to organise and manage a team and project. The experience demonstrated that project management is an activity in itself within a project. The time I spent organising meetings, preparing documents, and tying everything together took much longer than expected. Going forward from this, I will now be able to better estimate my available time and set much more realistic deadlines and expectations.

Personal Development: Tom

10.15 Working with children was particularly interesting to me. I was able to build on past experiences where I have helped run children’s' skiing holidays by taking forward and run games (such as the clap-o-meter) that I have seen done before. I also found it fascinating how much some of the children knew, for example I was amazed that an 11 year old knew what a non-Newtonian liquid is!

10.16 Organising the event at the Brunel centre was also an interesting experience, having to deal with the venue and couriers to ensure that we had everything waiting for us at the shopping centre on the day was like nothing I've ever had to do before.

Personal Development: Abi

10.17 I learnt about the management needs for an elderly focus group. As an audience, elderly people are very intelligible and responsive to subjects they can relate to on a personal basis. Once mutual understanding and good rapport are established they


53

easily support their own discussion, but the facilitator must actively maintain their focus on the objectives.

10.18 It was also a learning curve to run a professional event, representing EPSRC. Having to be constantly mindful of our underlying objectives and relating all our discussion back to EPSRC’s mission was challenging, but helpful to make the link between theory and application.

10.19 It was a useful experience of being a team player, sometimes taking a back seat instead of being project manager as in past experiences, and taking lead on the elderly engagement. I affirmed my adaptability to team dynamics as learnt from the PM induction course.


A-1

Annex A General Aspects

Appendix A-1 Resources

Equipment Required Place(s) Activity Notes

Reason for Cost Difference Original Cost

Actual Cost Difference

A4 street photos x6

Lunch Club Elderly Printed by JRS Printing costs reduced £ 6.20 £ 3.29 -£ 2.91

A3 colour map Lunch Club Elderly Printed by JRS Not budgeted for originally £ - £ 1.08 £ 1.08 Charles and Hebba Travel

Lunch Club Elderly Changed from 1 visit to 2 £ 49.20 £ 108.63 £ 59.43

SPARC brochures x10

Lunch Club Elderly Free from SPARC £ - £ - £ -

Comments box Lunch Club Elderly Free from CAST £ - £ - £ -

Camera Lunch Club Elderly Free from CAST £ - £ - £ - EPSRC banner

Lunch Club Elderly Free from CAST £ - £ - £ -

Taxi Lunch Club Return to Lunch

Club From station to church

Not budgeted for originally £ - £ 5.70 £ 5.70

Problem sheets

Lunch Club Return to Lunch

Club Printed by JRS Not budgeted for originally £ - £ 5.12 £ 5.12

Elderly Total £ 55.40 £ 123.82 £ 68.42

Marshmallows Schools Spaghetti Towers

From Sainsbury's and Tesco

Changed from 1kg Marshmallows to 5kg Marshmallows and 4kg Jelly Babies

£ 4.95 £ 33.69 £ 28.74

Paper Plates Schools Spaghetti Towers

Not required £ 1.89 £ - -£ 1.89

Spaghetti Schools Spaghetti Towers


Changed from 3kg to 4.5kg £ 2.34 £ 5.61 £ 3.27

Plastic Cups Schools Bouncy Balls 100 Cups from Sainsbury’s and Tesco

£ 1.72 £ 1.72 £ -

Glue Schools Bouncy Balls From Ryman's Changed from 0.5l to 1l £ 7.64 £ 7.97 £ 0.33

Water Bottles Schools Bouncy Balls 6 Bottles of water from Tesco


Borax Schools Bouncy Balls From Boots Changed from 800g to 400g £ 2.08 £ 1.34 -£ 0.74

Cornflour Schools Peripheral

Activity, Bouncy Balls


Changed from 3kg to 5.5kg £ 5.88 £ 9.66 £ 3.78

Spoons Schools Peripheral

Activity, Bouncy Balls

For mixing cornflour and bouncing ball mixtures.

£ - £ - £ -

Food Colouring

Schools Peripheral Activity,

Bouncing Ball


Changed from x3 to x4 £ 3.15 £ 2.61 -£ 0.54

Super-elastic wire

Schools Peripheral Activity

2m of 0.8mm wire from MUTR

Cost more than expected (p&p)

£ 7.57 £ 10.90 £ 3.33

Thermocolour sheets


6x Thermocolour sheets from MUTR

Cost more than expected (p&p)

£ 21.02 £ 24.36 £ 3.34

Trays for cornflour


3 Trays from M&S Not budgeted for originally £ - £ 5.87 £ 5.87

Smart materials pack


For Samples, from MUTR

Cost more than expected £ 13.52 £ 26.90 £ 13.38

Colouring Pens

Schools Design

competition Free from CAST £ - £ - £ -

Design Template

Schools Design

competition Printed by JRS Changed from A2 to A3 £ 76.00 £ - -£ 76.00


A-2

Rulers Schools Design

competition Free from CAST £ - £ - £ -

A selection of Materials to generate thought

Schools Design

competition Building materials pack from MUTR


Name badges Schools All Free from CAST £ - £ - £ -

Activity Posters & other printing

Schools All Printed by JRS 7 Activity posters A1, 6 laminated colour A3 and 1 Colour A1

£ 15.90 £ 33.90 £ 18.00

CRB Checks Schools All Not required (and free) £ 400.00 £ - -£ 400.00

Transport Schools All Taxi to schools (excluding Tom's car)

Originally estimated £ 60.00 £ 46.46 -£ 13.54

T-shirts Schools All 7 T-shirts Originally estimated £ 30.00 £ 39.44 £ 9.44

Tea & Coffee Schools All SEAs Induction Not budgeted for originally £ - £ 9.00 £ 9.00

Assistants Schools - Lawn

Bouncy Balls Katherine Jarvis (no second helper)

£ - £ - £ -

Assistants Schools - Lethbridge

Spaghetti Towers, Bouncy

Balls

Derek Gillespie, Susan Soulsby

£ - £ - £ -

Assistants Schools - Robert le Kyng

Spaghetti Towers, Bouncy

Balls

Amanda Chmura, Katie Blaney

£ - £ - £ -

Schools Total £ 653.66 £ 284.70 -£ 368.96

2 x Bucket Brunel Centre

NSEW Stand Not needed £ 1.96 £ - -£ 1.96

EPSRC Corporate gifts

Brunel Centre

NSEW Stand Free from CAST £ - £ - £ -

3 Bloodhound posters

Brunel Centre


Tablecloths Brunel Centre


Tables Brunel Centre

NSEW Stand Available from Brunel Centre

£ - £ - £ -

Display Boards Brunel Centre


50 Bloodhound handouts

Brunel Centre

NSEW Stand Free from the

Bloodhound team Free £ 40.00 £ - -£ 40.00

8 Photographs of children's work

Brunel Centre

NSEW Stand Printed in colour (A4) by JRS

Originally estimated £ 9.92 £ 20.81 £ 10.89

Space Leasing Brunel Centre

NSEW Stand Provided by Brunel

Centre Originally estimated £ 250.00 £ 241.50 -£ 8.50

Star Trek Desk posters

Brunel Centre


Courier Brunel Centre

NSEW Stand Provided by CAST Not budgeted for originally £ - £ 30.00 £ 30.00

General

public Total £ 366.23 £ 292.31 -£ 73.92

Grand Total £ 1,075.29 £ 700.83 -£ 374.46


A-3

Appendix A-2 People Hours

Hours worked on Project

Week Abi Nat Tom Kat Cole PM 1 PM 2 PM 3 PM 4 PM 5 Major Event

01/12/2008 3 3 3 4 - - - - - - Scope

08/12/2008 3 3 3 4 - - - - - - Plan

15/12/2008 3 3 3 4 - - - - - - Pitch

22/12/2008 - - - - - - - - - -

29/12/2008 - - - - - - - - - - CHRISTMAS

05/01/2009 3 3 3 4 - - - - - - Plan

12/01/2009 3 3 3 4 - - - - - - "

19/01/2009 3 3 3 5 - - - - - - "

26/01/2009 3 3 3 5 - - - - - - "

02/02/2009 3 3 3 5 - - - - - - "

09/02/2009 3 3 3 5 3 - - - - - "

16/02/2009 6 6 6 6 6 2 2 2 2 - SEAs Induction

23/02/2009 6 6 6 6 6 - - - - - Elderly event

02/03/2009 3 6 3 3 3 1 1 1 1 1 Briefings

09/03/2009 34 34 34 34 31 7 7 7 7 7 Schools and Brunel

16/03/2009 3 3 3 4 3 - - - - - Evaluation

23/03/2009 6 6 3 4 6 - - - - - Elderly return visit

30/03/2009 3 3 3 4 3 - - - - - "

06/04/2009 1 1 1 1 1 - - - - - EASTER

13/04/2009 1 1 1 4 1 - - - - - Evaluation

20/04/2009 1 1 1 4 1 - - - - - "

27/04/2009 2 2 2 4 2 - - - - - "

Individual Total 93 96 90 114 66 10 10 10 10 8

TOTAL 515


A-4

Appendix A-3 Press Release sent to Media establishments

Pupils learn science from spaghetti Local primary school pupils will be building towers from marshmallows and spaghetti during National Science and Engineering Week (March 6-15). Pupils aged between 9-11 at Lethbridge, Lawn and Robert Le Kyng primary schools will be using the tower game to gain insight into exciting career opportunities available in science, engineering and technology sectors. The pupils will also make polymer bouncy balls and look at how futuristic materials could be used to design streets to suit their needs when they reach 80 years old. The school visits are being organised by five Year in Industry students (YINI) based at and sponsored by Swindon’s Engineering and Physical Sciences Research Council (EPSRC) at North Star Avenue. The YINI students are Kat Suddaby, Tom Wood, Nat Wand, Abi Catt and Cole Soutter. They are all on a gap-year before taking up university places this September. Other ESPRC YINI events planned include an interactive talk on transport issues that concern older people at the Swindon Evangelical Lunch Club on Friday 27

th February.

On March 13 shoppers in the Brunel Centre will be able to participate in a science based game and view the work produced by local school children. There will be information on display about a new EPSRC funded vehicle being built to break the land speed record and reach speeds of over 1000mph. David Harman, EPSRC Head of Public Engagement said: “We hope the activities will highlight the benefits and opportunities that come with a career in engineering science and technology. Projects like these will ultimately help to encourage the next generation and ensure Britain maintains a strong stance in the fields of research, development and manufacturing.” ends


A-5

Appendix A-4 Reporter’s article from the Swindon Advertiser (10/03/09)


A-6

Appendix A-5 Journalist’s Column from the Swindon Advertiser (11/03/09)


B-1

Annex B Elderly Engagement

Appendix B-1 Lunch club Leaflet Friday 27

th February – Interactive talk on

Accessibility in Transport and Street Design Lunch at the usual time of 12:30, with the event starting at 13:00. Don’t miss out! A fun opportunity to hear about and discuss the issues of getting around on foot and by car. Sharing current research which aims to meet the needs of older drivers and pedestrians, and inviting your comments and views, are 5 ‘Year in Industry’ students from the local Engineering and Physical Sciences Research Council. The event timetable:

12:30-13:00 LUNCH As usual

13:00-13:15

INTRODUCTIONS:

• Who we are!

• National Science and Engineering Week 2009

• The EPSRC, funding research to improve inclusive design, accessibility and quality of life. All

13:15-13:25 TALK about accessibility in transport and infrastructure

Guest speaker Charles Musselwhite

Option 1: TRANSPORT BOARD GAME Do you drive? Do you wish you could have continued driving for longer? A fun and interactive game, prompting discussion on driving issues and solutions

Led by Charles and Hebba (researchers at UWE, Bristol)

13:25-13:55 Option 2: STREET DESIGN CONSULTATION Is your experience as a pedestrian in Swindon overlooked? We want to listen to YOU, as users of the streets! Discuss issues of lighting, street furniture, pavements and the ‘green’ scene.

Led by Year In Industry students

13:55-14:00 ROUND-UP and questions; comments box on way out All


B-2

Appendix B-2 Introduction Hello and welcome! Introducing ourselves. Run through what will happen (timetable). National Science and Engineering Week (NSEW) is a ten day celebration of science, engineering and technology which will run from the 6 - 15 March. Last year around 1.4 million people attended over 3,500 events across the UK and this year we aim to make it even bigger! National Science and Engineering Week is coordinated by the British Science Association, funded by DIUS (Department for Innovation, Universities and Skills). Also funded by DIUS is the Engineering and Physical Sciences Research Council (EPSRC) – the organisation we are representing today. EPSRC is the main government agency for funding research and training across the science spectrum in UK universities. Has anybody heard of EPSRC before? We are a local organisation, with our offices next to Swindon railway station! We are here to share with you some of the exciting research that is taking place in the area of accessibility in transport and street design. In the current economic downturn, EPSRC has an important role to play in helping our industry find its competitive edge through innovation that benefits society. We hope you will be enthused and encouraged by the research you hear about, and know that your views and ideas are extremely valuable as you represent the future users of this research. Today is as much about YOU informing us, as it is about what knowledge we can share with you! A very relevant project to the older generation, partly funded by EPSRC, is the Strategic Promotion of Ageing Research Capacity (SPARC). This small project has funded many new exciting ideas for better living, such as those you can read about at your leisure in the brochures. For drivers and ex-drivers, we have a SPARC award-winning researcher with us today, called Charles Musselwhite, to talk about driving issues and solutions with a board game! Does anyone have any questions? Split groups – How many drivers? Charles will be interested to talk with you, and a few others… whilst for the rest, we’re going to discuss getting around on foot!


B-3

Appendix B-3 Street Design Consultation In a culture dominated by road transport, where people don’t think twice about getting in the car for even short distance journeys, the pedestrian experience is too often forgotten. However, research funded by EPSRC is recognising that pedestrian journeys are an important component of older peoples’ lives. For example, University College London is running a project called PAMELA – the Pedestrian Accessibility and Movement Environment Laboratory. A multisensory street environment has been created in the lab to monitor peoples’ reactions to changes in surface topography, lighting, noise and other features. Today we would like to hear from you about your pedestrian journeys in Swindon, and what improvements you think could be made to local street design to make those journeys easier. We will capture your ideas on the flip chart, and children in local primary schools (Robert Le Kyng, Lethbridge and Lawn) will be incorporating what you say into their own street designs during further engagement activities in March. They will have a competition to design the best street for everyone in the community, including you, to use. Please take a look at these photos, taken in the local area by ourselves earlier in the month. (Pass around). Does anybody recognise these places? If not, perhaps you can think of other specific places where you recall personal experience of what it’s like being a pedestrian. Any suggestions? (Annotate map or write the place name). With these places in mind, we’re going to think carefully about four features on the flip chart: Pavement, Street Furniture, Lighting and Green Environment. We hope to differentiate between what is good (pluses), what are the problems (concerns), and how these problems could be met with opportunities for improvement.

1. Pavement

PLUSES

CONCERNS

OPPORTUNITIES

3. Lighting

PLUSES

CONCERNS

OPPORTUNITIES

2. Street Furniture

PLUSES

CONCERNS

OPPORTUNITIES

4. Green Environment

PLUSES

CONCERNS

OPPORTUNITIES


B-4

Guiding questions: Pavement How suitable do you think (concrete) surfaces are to walk on? Is anyone willing to share first-hand experience, or perhaps you know a friend or relative with experience, of falling over on a hard and unforgiving pavement? What causes these accidents – Uneven surface? Lack of grip on steep gradients? Distraction by other obstacles? Non-motorised traffic e.g. bicycles on the pavement? Curbs? Is the pavement wide enough? Problems with surface runoff? Would more permeable material and better drainage reduce this? Street Furniture What is the street furniture in these places? Does the style reflect on Swindon’s history (traditional), or a new modern culture (contemporary)? What do you think about this? Does the positioning of furniture create obstacles that are difficult to navigate? Are signs useful or confusing? Do you find sufficient resting places, shelter and toilet facilities of decent quality? Lighting How many of you go out after dark or when vision is more difficult on dull days, especially in winter? Would you change these habits if street lighting was different? Do you worry about safety in darker areas? Do you like the style and positioning of street lights? How about brackets on buildings or up-lighting for trees? Does the colour and brightness affect your vision? How would you change this? Green Environment How clean are your streets? Do you notice litter? How could the street scene be more aesthetically appealing and inviting to encourage people out? Could there be more greenery, trees and ‘breathing spaces’? How far do you have to walk to the nearest green area, such as a park? Conclusion: If this research meant that future streets gave less of these concerns and fulfilled the opportunities you have highlighted today, do you think people like yourselves in future generations would walk more and stay healthier/fitter for longer?


B-5

Appendix B-4 Transport Board Game Outputs

Automated Highway

• Drivers like to have control of their own car

• Don’t think the technology would be reliable

• Were of the belief they would be better than the computers Cyclists

• Energetic

• Dangerous – larger volumes of traffic putting cyclists at risk

• Sometimes don’t see cyclist coming

• Cyclists are seen as menaces – they were said not to properly integrate into traffic

• It was believed cyclists found it hard to cross at junctions are there were no set routes or lanes for them to use. However it was noted that when cyclists were asked to dismount at junctions, they didn’t abide.

• Cycling was perceived as being convenient and sometimes quicker than driving when there were large volumes of traffic on the roads.

• The drivers said they always gave cyclists “room to wobble”

• The drivers found it frustrating when cyclists cycled on the footpath when they themselves were walking on them

• It was noted many cyclists ride without lights or a horn, both of which made it harder to see or notice them

• It was said cyclists with no lights were prosecuted

• The elderly thought they were better cyclists as they were aware of the safety regulations

Younger Drivers

• They were described as terrible and intimidating, driving too fast and tailgating.

• The drivers believed younger people were inconsiderate on the roads

• It was believed they took a lot of risks; the number of risks taken decreased with age

• The elderly believed the young drivers didn’t care about the speed limit o This was believed to be caused by the young people enjoying the feeling of

power and control they had on the road. The elderly felt the young people liked taking authority on the road

• It was perceived young people will overtake an elderly driver simply because of their age. It was discussed if they see typical signs of an elderly driver (e.g. grey hair, bald patch) they felt the need to over take unnecessarily.

• It was believed when the elderly drivers were young themselves they were much safer.

o One reason for this was not having as many speed signs or speed bumps. o Cars were typically not as powerful too

Maintaining a constant distance from the car in front

• The elderly thought the chevrons on the road made it harder to maintain a distance to the car in front. They felt the gap they tried to maintain was filled by other drivers cutting them up.

• They felt they had more problems with maintaining a safe distance behind them Fatigue indicator system

• They elderly believed this would be expensive, but would consider if cheap

• They felt there were already too many distractions in the car and this would just add to them


B-6

• They believed they could tell themselves when they were tired. Experience helped with this

o When this happened they automatically slowed down

• The elderly felt they didn’t tend to take long journeys; at most one a year

• If they do take long journeys, they take regular breaks (2 or 3) o However with cars becoming increasingly comfortable they feel less inclined

to take them in contrast to when the cars used to be like “bone shakers”.

• There was a preference not to travel on the motorways too often

• Felt it was easier to stay awake if they had someone to talk to o When they are on their own they lack any distraction to keep them awake.

Reversing

• One driver felt they had a problem reversing in a straight line. This was caused by having to twist to see their mirrors. With age the ability and mobility to twist decreased. This made them increasingly reliant on their mirrors

o One member commented if you used the mirrors more, the driver would be more likely to reverse in a straight line. He compared this to a bus or lorry driver who relies almost solely on mirrors.

• One driver referred to a terrifying time they had to reverse down a country lane when they met a tractor on a single lane road.

• The group felt like anything, if reversing is done often enough it becomes less of a problem.

Knowing the gear selection

• The group agreed the rev counter was a good indication of the gear they were in

• The general consensus was the group didn’t find this a problem.

• They utilised the sound of the engine to identify the gear they were in. With age this became increasingly difficult. This difficulty in hearing sometimes made it hard to judge the gear.

• They group liked the idea of using an automatic in a place they were not familiar with as they believed it reduced the number of things they had to worry about.

Tailgating

• They became increasingly worried when this happened

• It was commented and agreed lorry drivers were the worst for this, particularly in the middle lane

• They found this behaviour intimidating

• They found this behaviour has increased over the years due to the urgency everyone has to get from A to B

Lane detection System

• One member believed this would be quite scary. They worried this technology may be used incorrectly by other drivers getting too close and so causing the system to kick in.

• They felt it would give too much feedback and be distracting Reduced reaction time

• It was felt this was hard to judge but the group felt they did compensate by actively being more aware on the roads. They left additional distance for the decrease in reaction.

• They felt they became easily distracted on long journey and their minds would wonder to other things

• They felt the reactions were linked to observations


B-7

• They felt they were more cautious, drove slower and were increasingly more sensible with age.

• They felt experience made up for this slightly Walking

• Pace

• The car was seen to make drivers lazy

• Hills were seen as a restriction and prevented walking everywhere

• Heavy loads also prevented people walking

• They saw walking was good for health and fitness Maintaining speed

• On long journeys this became increasingly hard as joints and health decline and tire

• This problem increased with age


B-8

Appendix B-5 Outputs from Street Design Consultation Pavement: Pluses

• Newer pavements

• Tactile pavement helps visually impaired Concerns

• Mobility scooter needs dropped curbs

• Adjacent cycle/pedestrian lanes – unclear, where should the scooter go? “I wouldn’t use the pedestrian lane”

• Condition – elevated/tipping slabs

• Sunken drain covers on Bath Road

• Coal hole covers missing

• Bins in the way! Creates an obstacle which scooters have to divert around into the road

• Width too narrow – agreement with I’DGO for minimum 2000mm

• Cycle paths – cyclists whiz past pedestrians

• Cyclists in the pedestrianised shopping zone are a threat

• Bumpy

• Gritting – poor

• Tactile pavement – uncomfortable, tripping up Opportunities for Improvement

• Curved pavements for access by scooter

• Tarmac instead of slabs – grip, unsteady

• Speed warning systems

• More time to get across zebra crossings

• Better gritting of hills/inclines

• Legal changes to snow clearing – H&S culture Street Furniture: Pluses

• Recycling well done

• Pedestrian crossings have improved over time

• Well signposted Concerns

• Parking on pavements – half-parked cars

• Overhanging trees

• Bins not collected

• Street bins can be an eyesore – one is visible from over someone’s garden hedge

• Not enough benches – none in parks?

• Hard ball games – banging noise against the wall

• Sleeping policeman bumps Opportunities for Improvement

• Wardens – service to supervise (ball games in particular, and golf in the park because balls end up in gardens)

• Sweeping of leaves in autumn

• Bus shelter on Okus Road – protection from wind and rain! Lighting:


B-9

Pluses

• Good generally

• Good experience of service from Southern Electric, in the event of a power cut – they are very supportive of the elderly

• Helps deter crime around personal homes Concerns:

• Bus stops get vandalised, glass smashed – lighting perhaps not enough to stop this Opportunities

• Closer spacing of streetlights

• Modern lights in old-fashioned style design

• LED lights would be brighter and have lower power consumption (they are however, shifted more to the blue end of the light spectrum, which would be a big change from the old-fashioned yellowy-orange of the sodium-based lights that we are used to)

Green Environment: Pluses

• Greenery in parks

• Easy access to parks – “just across the road”

• Good flower arrangements – noticed by visitors to the town

• Hanging baskets – easily maintained, used to disappear (vandals)

• Lawn/Broad green – wide alleyways

• Pinehurst

• Lots of trees in Swindon Concerns

• Dog fouling (not bad, but not good)

• Poorly maintained paths

• Motorist carelessness – litter!

• Over-playful youngsters

• Graffiti

• Chewing gum Opportunities for Improvement

• Clearing leaves

• More areas for youths to play (already good provision e.g. Swindon Youth For Christ)


B-10

Appendix B-6 Questionnaires and Evaluation Methodology

Co-ordinator Questionnaire

As organisers of the event entitled ‘Accessibility in Transport and Street Design’ of Friday 27th February, the Year in Industry students at EPSRC would be grateful if you could fill in this brief feedback form as part of our evaluation. Your thoughts will help us improve events for the future. Please rate the following:

(Tick the box)

Excellent Good Average Poor

Clarity of information

Pitch/tone of communication

Steering of activity/discussion

Encouragement of participation

Listening to participants

Enjoyment by all

High Med Low How would you rate the level of interest and engagement?

Please comment on the 2 activities:

What worked well? What could be improved?



Excellent Good Average Poor How would you rate the presentation delivery from Charles Musselwhite?


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Did the event spark discussion during the following week’s meeting about EPSRC, research, transport or street design?

None at all Some Lots

Examples

Would you recommend a similar engagement event to other elderly groups?

Yes No

Extra comments: Thank you for your help in hosting the event, and for your valuable comments. Please return this questionnaire to the address below by Friday 20th March. Miss A. Catt EPSRC GFE Polaris House North Star Avenue Swindon SN2 1ET


B-12

Accessibility in Transport and Street Design

Questionnaire

As organisers of the event entitled ‘Accessibility in Transport and Street Design’ of Friday 27th February, the Year in Industry students at EPSRC would be grateful if you could fill in this brief feedback form as part of our evaluation. Your thoughts will help us improve events for the future.

Please rate the following:

(Tick the box) Excellent Good Average Poor

Enjoyment

Interest

Organisation

Interaction

Activity leaders

Please comment on the activity you participated in: Which activity did you participate in?



What worked well?

What could be improved?


B-13

What can you remember about EPSRC? A Lot A Little Nothing

Can you give some examples:

How did the event impact your view of science and engineering? A Lot A Little Not at all

Can you give some examples:

Will you look out for news about next year’s National Science and Engineering Week? Yes No

Any extra comments? Thank you for taking the time to complete this questionnaire


C-1

Annex C Schools Engagement

Appendix C-1 Materials Game Properties Introduction Game – Introduction used to get the kids to think about properties In the area the children begin seated (away from the activity stations) there will be posters on the floor labelling areas for particular materials. A property term relating to material will be called out and the students will go to the poster naming a material that has that property (e.g. waterproof = plastic). A selection of children will justify why they have decided to stand at the material they have. If the child is stood at a material poster that is not suitable to that property (e.g. magnetic = wood) they will be out. The aim of the game is to be the last one in.

Example of Floor Posters

The properties to be called out (in a random order) will be:

• Transparent

• Opaque

• Waterproof

• Absorbent

• Strong

• Brittle

• Flexible

• Stiff

• Hard

• Malleable

• Magnetic

• Electrical Conductor

The material Stations will be:

• Wood

• Glass

• Plastic

• Iron

• Aluminium

• Rubber

• Fabric

•


C-2

Appendix C-2 Group Names

Group Colour Group Name

Yellow Topaz

Red Tourmaline

Blue Sapphire

Green Malachite

White Quartz

Purple Tanzanite


C-3

Appendix C-3 Activity Posters


C-4

Timing:

25 minutes

Your Mission:

To make the bouncy ball that bounces the highest!

What to do:

Making your balls:

• Add your Ball Mixture (red or yellow) and your corn flour (blue or green) to your cup of glue

• Leave the mixture for about 20 seconds

• Now stir the mixture until it becomes too hard to stir any more

• The messy bit: Take the mixture out of the cup and mould it in your hands until it becomes more solid

• If it is still very sticky add a bit more corn flour

• Go ahead and bounce it!!

As a group:

• Test all the balls made by your group

• Select your groups best bouncer to put into the competition

• The group with the highest bounce wins!


C-5

How it works: What is it for?

Fair testing is something real scientists use every day to make sure their results are right.

How is it done?

• To make a scientific test fair, everything must be kept the same except what is being tested.

• For bouncy balls this is why we drop every ball from the same height because it ensures that the best ball will be the one that bounces the highest not the ball that was thrown the hardest or moving the fastest.

• To make sure our test was fair we repeat it. This way we know that if we get the same result lots of times in a row our results are right. Three is a good number of repeats to run.

This is not a fair test because the middle ball was dropped from slightly higher than the other two and so it has an unfair advantage

This is a fair test because all the balls were dropped from the same height and so the only thing changing how high the balls bounce will be how bouncy the balls are


C-6

Timing:

25 minutes

Your Mission:

Build the tallest tower that stands up by itself!

What to do:

• In your team spend 5 minutes designing two towers, each with a DIFFERENT choice of design

• Split your team into two: Each team will attempt to build one of the designs

• Construct the tower using Spaghetti, Marshmallows, Jelly babies or a combination of them all. Think about why you are using each material.

• At the end, as a team you will submit your tallest tower. Why do you think it worked better?

You have:

Sticks of Spaghetti Marshmallows Jelly Babies

Don’t eat them or you will not have enough!

Remember:

1. Decide the best way to build your towers. � What shapes are you going to use? � How wide are you going to make it?

2. Use teamwork to construct better towers � No one gets left out

3. Building a tall tower too quickly will just collapse � Try and make a sturdy frame to hold it up!

4. The tallest tower at the end of the day wins! � The judge’s decision is final


C-7

How it works:

Shapes:

The best way to build a tower is to use both Squares

AND Triangles!

If you build a tower out of only squares then it would be very wobbly!

If you build a tower out of only triangles, the tower will be stronger,

but smaller!


C-8

Compression and Tension Even though the tower is standing still, the individual parts are pulling and pushing against each other – they are either in tension or under compression. Imagine you are one of the pieces of spaghetti, would you feel squashed or pulled? The vertical pieces will be PUSHED (under compression), and the force will be the greatest at the base. The horizontal pieces may be in PULLED (in tension.)

Are you being pulled?

Or are you being pushed?

PUSHED

PULLED

(UNDER COMPRESSION)

(IN TENSION)


C-9

Timing:

25 minutes

Your Mission:

To come up with the best solutions in response to problems the elderly generation face, judged on:

• What materials you use and how you use them

• How well you solve the problems

• How realistic the solutions are

• How well the solutions are explained

• How artistic the solution is

What to Do:

Within your group design the best solutions to the problems on the problem sheet:

• Look at the problems

• Look at the example solution

• Discuss solutions within your group

• Design your solutions

• Don’t forget to annotate them!

• You could think about including the following materials:

� Self Healing Resin – If it breaks then it fixes itself! � Plastic Electronics – So signs can change with ease! � Sand Paper – Very grippy � Rubber – Bouncy! � Carbon Fibre – Very Strong � Polystyrene – Protective � Ceramics – Brittle, but looks nice! � Transparent Concrete – Versatile and you can see

through it! � Kevlar – Very Strong and Flexible � Chameleon Film – Changes colour depending on where

you’re looking at it from


C-10

How it Works:

EPSRC funds research which is aimed at coming up with similar solutions, for example: PAMELA – The Pedestrian Accessibility and Movement Environment Laboratory. A street has been created where the environment can be controlled. When the street is tested on the elderly their reactions are measured. From these reactions improvements can be made – like the work you are doing!

The artificial Pavement


C-11

Peripheral Activities Cornflour Method Put two cups of cornflour in a bowl, add two teaspoons of food colouring (this is optional) and 1 cup of water. Mix it all up with your hands until all the powder is wet and then continue adding a few drops of water at a time, until you have a thick, smooth mixture. When you slowly push your finger into the mixture it should resemble a thick paint. When you try to pick up a piece of the material you find it’s one big solid lump. When you push your finger onto the surface of the 'liquid' quickly, and with a lot of force it appears solid. The harder you hit; the more solid it appears. Properties Tough when hit (even breaks when hit with a hammer) Flows like a liquid Explanation A dilatant fluid - The dilatant effect occurs when closely packed particles are combined with enough liquid to fill the gaps between them. At low velocities, the liquid acts as a lubricant, and the dilatant flows easily. At higher velocities, the liquid is unable to fill the gaps created between particles, and friction greatly increases, causing an increase in viscosity Applications Traction control Body armour Machining Operations Opposite – Ketchup, Paint, Toothpaste Thermocolour Paper Method Available from Middlesex University Teaching Resources (http://www.mutr.co.uk/product_info.php?products_id=548&osCsid=5c3938cca60d8af27ce0aeaa11a946ec), in sheets of 45cm x 30 cm. This was cut into 6 15cm x 15cm sheets. Themocolour paper is a remarkable self adhesive sheet material printed with thermochromic liquid crystal 'ink'. It changes colour (bright blue) when heated above 27°C. Properties Changes colour depending on temperature Thin Easily shaped/cut Explanation Based on liquid crystal technology, at specific temperatures the liquid crystals re-orientate themselves to produce an apparent change of colour. The liquid crystal material itself is micro-encapsulated, i.e. contained within microscopic spherical capsules typically just 10 microns in diameter. Billions of these capsules are mixed with a suitable carrier. Applications LCD displays – televisions, computer screens, calculators etc.


C-12

Appendix C-4 Design Competition

Problem Poster


C-13

Design Template


C-14

Example Design 1


C-15

Example Design 2


C-16

Appendix C-5 T-shirt Design


C-17

Appendix C-6 Questionnaires & Evaluation Methodology

Schools Opinion and Questionnaire Analysis

Introduction Directly after the event the children were asked to give one positive comment (on green card), and one improvement (on red card), in order to receive their prize (a corporate pencil). 168 positive comments were received and 137 comments for improvement. Within 1-2 weeks after the event teachers and children were asked to completed questionnaires, in order to get a medium term view from respondents. 162 responses were received from children and 4 from teachers, and it can be assumed that the response rate for both is very high. Not all respondents gave answers to every question, so the number is given throughout. Copies of the questionnaires sent out can be found at the end of this analysis. The results from these two sets of feedback, and brief descriptions of what they show, are given below. Comments directly post-event Table C-6-1 below shows the positive comments received, and the aspects they mentioned. Overall the bouncy balls activity received the greatest proportion of positive comments (41%) with the bouncy balls second (21%). Examples of comments for each aspect include: Spaghetti Towers - Challenging and creative Bouncy Balls - They actually bounced, and they were messy Design Competition - This got them thinking Overall activities - Making things, not just listening and working as a group People - The people who helped were friendly and funny Groups - Everyone felt included Competition - The prizes were good and the idea of winning spurred them on Other - General positive comments e.g. everything was equally good Table C-6-1 Children’s positive comments

Aspect Number of Comments Percentage

Spaghetti towers 35 21%

Bouncy balls 69 41%

Design Competition 10 6%

Other Activities 7 4%

People 5 3%

Groups 2 1%

Competition 5 3%

Other 35 21%

Total 168 100%

The comments for improvement are shown in Table C-6-2. Overall there were less of these than positive comments, and nearly a quarter of them said that nothing should be improved. Other than that the top aspects to improve were the spaghetti towers, the design competition, and the need for more time and activities. Other examples are given below: Spaghetti towers - Not enough time, spaghetti kept snapping, not enough sweets, and the towers kept collapsing Bouncy Balls - Bouncy balls kept splitting, they weren’t very colourful


C-18

Design Competition - Could be more fun, use more material samples Prizes - Everyone should get a prize Eating - Should be able to eat some of the sweets Time/number of activities - More time and more activities Nothing - Nothing and it was all really good Other - Make it messier, funnier and give more help. Table C-6-2 Children’s comments for improvement

Aspect Number of Comments Percentage

Spaghetti towers 24 18%

Bouncy balls 9 7%


Prizes 12 9%

Eating 11 8%

Time/number of activities 18 13%

Nothing 32 23%

Other 8 6%

Total 137 100%

Overall messages from the comments were positive, and that they especially enjoyed the bouncy ball and spaghetti tower activities, but that the spaghetti tower activity and design competition could have been improved, and there could have been more time, prizes for everyone, and the sweets should have been edible. Children questionnaire results Rating the event Figure C-6-1 below shows the overall rating given for each part of the event by the children. Points raised include:

• 98% of children found the event overall ‘good’ or ‘great’.

• Spaghetti towers and bouncy balls come top out of the individual parts, with 73% of respondents rating each of them as ‘great’.

• The introduction, conclusion and design competition were given similar ratings, with 60-65% of respondents rating each as ‘good’ or better.

• The design competition received the greatest proportion of negative responses, 11% found it ‘poor’ or worse.


C-19

Figure C-6-1 Children’s overall rating of each part of the event

0% 20% 40% 60% 80% 100%

Introduction

Bouncy Balls

Spaghetti Towers

Design Competition

Conclusion

Overall Enjoyment

Great

Good

Okay

Poor

Rubbish

147

Responses

156

Responses

159

Responses

160

Responses

162

Responses

159

Responses

The ratings by primary school can also be found below (in Figure C-6-2, Figure C-6-3 and Figure C-6-4) Key points include:

• Overall Lawn primary school children enjoyed the event least, Robert Le Kyng the most.

• Significantly at Lawn there were a lot more negative responses for the design competition, 27% of respondents found it ‘poor’ or worse.

• At Robert le Kyng 90% of respondents overall said they found the event ‘great’. These results may reflect a few things about the different schools:

• That as the event was run through we became better at running it and improved the enjoyment as a result.

• The longer after the event the questionnaires came in (the order was Robert le Kyng, Lethbridge then Lawn), then the less ‘rose-tinted’ the opinions were.


C-20

Figure C-6-2 Lethbridge rating of each part of the event

0% 10% 20% 30% 40% 50% 60% 70% 80% 90% 100%

Introduction

Bouncy Balls

Spaghetti Towers

Design Competition

Conclusion

Overall Enjoyment

Great

Good

Okay

Poor

Rubbish

52

Responses

57

Responses

57

Responses

58

Responses

60

Responses

60

Responses

Figure C-6-3 Lawn rating of each part of the event

0% 10% 20% 30% 40% 50% 60% 70% 80% 90% 100%

Introduction

Bouncy Balls

Spaghetti Towers

Design Competition

Conclusion

Overall Enjoyment

Great

Good

Okay

Poor

Rubbish

42

Responses

45

Responses

48

Responses

48

Responses

48

Responses

47

Responses


C-21

Figure C-6-4 Robert le Kyng rating of each part of the event

0% 10% 20% 30% 40% 50% 60% 70% 80% 90% 100%

Introduction

Bouncy Balls

Spaghetti Towers

Design Competition

Conclusion

Overall Enjoyment

Great

Good

Okay

Poor

Rubbish

53

Responses

54

Responses

54

Responses

54

Responses

54

Responses

52

Responses

Overall 156 out of 160 respondents said that they would like to come to a similar event, so overall the children enjoyed it. There were also 52 positive comments recorded as part of the questionnaires, including 4 mentioning how friendly the people were. Out of the other comments there were 43 points for improvement raised. These are shown below in Table C-6-3. This shows that similar to the initial post-event comments, that the design competition was the particular activity which children wanted improved the most (14% of comments), whilst the length of time and number of activities, and prizes were also points for improvement (53% and 14% of responses respectively). The points raised were similar to those previously mentioned. Table C-6-3 Children’s questionnaire points for improvement

Aspect No. of comments Percentage

Introduction 2 5%

Spaghetti Towers 1 2%


Peripheral Activities 1 2%

Conclusion 2 5%

Time/number of activities 23 53%

Prizes 6 14%

Other 2 5%

Total 43 100%

Memory of event The children were also asked to say how much they remembered about the event, and to try and give examples. This was in an attempt to see whether the event had made any kind of long term impact on the behaviour or attitude of the children. The basic results are shown in Figure C-6-5.


C-22

It must be remembered that although the order of the events is from the bottom to top of Figure C-6-5, the results were received in the order: Robert le Kyng, Lethbridge and the Lawn, which will affect the memory. Overall 97% of respondents can remember at least ‘some’ things about the event, whilst 28% could remember ‘lots’. The first respondents, Robert le Kyng, had the best memory, with 44% saying they could remember ‘lots’, whilst at the last school to respond, Lawn, only 2 of the 34 responses could. This could suggest that the memory of the event and activities can be lost quite rapidly, and so to have a high chance of success an event must have high impact initially. Figure C-6-5 Children’s memory of the event

0% 20% 40% 60% 80% 100%

Lethbridge

Lawn

RLK

Overall

Lots

Some

None

130

Responses

52

Responses

34

Responses

44

Responses

Examples of what they could remember are given in Table C-6-4. The activities were remembered best of all, with 43% of responses mentioning bouncy balls, and 22% spaghetti towers. Lots of respondents also remembered the peripheral activities, and in particular the cornflour (10%). Finally, 8% of respondents said they could remember some of the science explained to them, and 5 respondents also mentioned examples of EPSRC-funded research which was explained to them (the invisibility cloak and bloodhound). Overall this is reassuring that a lot of good, clear information was communicated to the children. Table C-6-4 Examples of what children could remember

Aspect Number of responses Percentage

Introduction 2 1%

Bouncy Balls 75 43%

Spaghetti Towers 39 22%

Design competition 17 10%

Cornflour 18 10%

Thermocolour paper 3 2%

Conclusion 1 1%

Invisibility cloak 4 2%

Bloodhound 1 1%

Prizes 1 1%

Science 14 8%

Total 175 100%


C-23

Teacher questionnaire results There were only 4 responses from teachers but what they said was broadly similar to the children, the bouncy balls and spaghetti towers were rated best, with the design competition and conclusion rated least well. Overall they all said that the children ‘really’ enjoyed the event, and all 4 said they would recommend the event to other schools.These points are summarised in Figure C-6-6 below: Figure C-6-6 Teachers’ rating of each part of the event

0% 10% 20% 30% 40% 50% 60% 70% 80% 90% 100%

Introduction

Bouncing Balls

Spaghetti Towers

Design Competition

Conclusion

Enjoyment

Excellent

Good

Average

Poor

Very Poor

Comments from them emphasised that children enjoyed the event, and they thought it was well organised. The introduction was also singled out for praise, and it was said that the whole thing was pitched at the right level. The only improvement raised was that they felt the towers could have been explained better. They also all said that the event sparked ‘some’ discussion amongst the children in the previous weeks, citing examples such as a discussion on what they would do at future science festivals, and discussions on EPSRC and other science jobs.


C-24

Teacher’s Questionnaire for EPSRC National Science & Engineering Event

We hope that the children enjoyed their half day with us, and that you found the activities useful. We would now be grateful if you could fill out this questionnaire, so we can improve future events. 1. How would you rate each part of the event:

(Tick the box)

Excellent Good Average Poor Very Poor

Introduction

Bouncing Balls

Spaghetti & Marshmallow Towers

Design Competition

Conclusion

2. How would you rate how much children enjoyed the event?

Really Quite Fairly Not Much Didn’t

3. Did the event spark discussion during the following weeks, about EPSRC, research, materials, the design competition or any other aspects?

None at all Some Lots

Examples

4. Would you recommend a similar event to other schools?

Yes No

5. Extra comments: Thanks for completing this questionnaire please return it to: Nat Wand, EPSRC, Polaris House, North Star Avenue, Swindon, SN2 1ET


C-25

Children’s Questionnaire for EPSRC National Science & Engineering Event

We hope that you enjoyed the event with us! We would now like it if you could answer these questions to help us run future events. 1. How would you rate each part of the event:

(Tick the box)

Introduction

Bouncing Balls

Spaghetti & Marshmallow Towers

Design Competition

Conclusion

2. How much did you enjoy the event?

3. Can you remember anything you found interesting?

None Some Lots

Examples

4. Would you like to go to a similar event?

Yes No

5. Extra comments: Thanks for completing this questionnaire please return it to your teacher.


D-1

Annex D General Public Engagement

Appendix D-1 Location

Documents

The YinI National Science and Engineering Week Project Evaluation Report (May 2009).pdfYinI National Science & Engineering Week Project 15/05/2009 ii Contents 1. Summary 1 2. Background