Category: School workshops

One Giant Leap

20th July, 1969. Neil Armstrong uttered his famous words “One small step for man, one giant leap for mankind” as he became the first human to step foot on another world.

This was 7 years before I was born, but my dad passed on his enthusiasm about space to me. I remember clearing out the understairs cupboard, turning it into a spaceship and drawing maps of the planets and stars. Space and astronomy have always been a hobby for me. But now I’m lucky enough to be able to share my love of space as a job.

To commemorate the 50th anniversary of the first moon landing, I have designed and produced a brand new planetarium show “One Giant Leap”. My aim was to design a show that brings alive the moon landings, for children who may not know that they happened. But this isn’t just a show for children. Adults will love it too! Whether you remember the moon landings or not, standing on the surface of the moon with Neil and Buzz is a great experience.

But it’s not just about the history of the moon landings. What have we achieved since? Where will we go in the future? This is a fully immersive show with some great surprises!

I’m lucky enough to have travelled the world attending rocket launches. But this show is something I’m incredibly proud of. And 8 year old me would be proud too.

So, BOOK NOW for your school or organisation. Or book to attend one of our summer school holiday sessions in Hull, Beverley, Grimsby or Scunthorpe. You can do this all online at http://www.labrascals.co.uk

Have a good weekend!

The Lab Rascals Team

Katie, Carol, Anita, Lauren and Amanda xx

Wind Energy

We love Lego, here at Lab Rascals! So we were ecstatic to be able to put it to educational use in our workshops. We are in the unique position of being able to teach science in schools in a fun way, so we were delighted to receive sponsorship from EON and Siemens to deliver wind energy workshops in schools in North Lincolnshire and Hull. Both these companies are big wind energy employers in the local area so we could really see the importance of promoting renewable energy sources and how the local area contributes to this.

We received funding to deliver 1 workshop each to 10 low income schools. Siemens workshops were offered to schools in Hull and EON workshops were offered to schools in North Lincolnshire. They were all snapped up instantly!

We begin the workshops by asking the children what they already know about wind energy and wind turbines, and then explain exactly how a wind turbine works. We have a large piece of turbine cable which we let them pass round. They’re always really surprised at how thick it is!

They are split into groups of 3 and then the building begins! We use LEGO Education Renewable Energy add-on kits, and they build a wind turbine tower, the blades and nacelle and a lego car. Some children are a whizz with lego and can build their part really quickly, others need a little help! Luckily we usually have help from Siemens and EON employees, and I’m sure they love it as much as the children do!

Once the turbines and car have been built we attached batteries to the turbine ask the children to find out how we get the most energy from the turbines by using desktop fans on different speed settings and using different numbers of blades. We then use that information to power our Lego cars.

These half day workshops are such good fun and allow the children to learn about important topics like renewable energy in a fun and engaging way! Watch this space for details of more wind energy workshops soon!!

Katie, Carol, Amanda, Lauren, Anita

The Lab Rascals Team xx