Wales Rally GB

We do love a good public event! We especially love the GB rally, which we have attended for the last 3 years. This year’s event was in Llandudno in Wales.

Wales Rally GB is a stage rally motor sport event and, in 2019, was the 12th round of the World Rally Championship. The event takes place over four days of competition and each day is divided into a number of ‘Special Stages’ which are when the drivers race against the clock for the fastest time. For the rest of the event they have to follow a pre-set schedule on normal public roads to get them to the next check point on time.

Branded as Wales Rally GB since 2003 when the Welsh Government became the principal funding partner, the rally is based out of a central Rally Village with competitive stages throughout north and mid Wales.

Wales Rally GB is organised and promoted by Motorsport UK.

We were invited to provide science entertainment for the school days on Thursday and Friday and also for the general public on the Friday night and Saturday. We were straight into the school days as soon as we arrived and we were incredibly busy making slime and encouraging the children to take part in our dry ice experiments. Slime is always extremely popular and it wasn’t long before we had a queue of around 40 children waiting to make their own slime. Even though it was pretty hectic we made sure we were explaining the science of slime making, so the children are learning, whilst having lots of fun!

Dry ice experiments are also always really popular as we encourage the children to add the dry ice into hot water and universal indicator and tell us what they discover. Dry ice experiments always look impressive! Especially when we add bubbles!

We always have a blast at public events but it’s always incredibly hard work! Seeing the children’s excited faces makes it worthwhile though!

Have a great weekend!

Love Katie, Carol, Anita and Sarah

The Lab Rascals team xxx

Half Term Science Fun

It’s been half term for most schools in East Yorkshire and North East Lincolnshire this week! But there’s no rest for us! We’ve been out and about delivering science workshops!

On Wednesday we were based at Burnby Halls and Gardens for their Community Day. After the terrible weather at the beginning of the week we were happy to see the sun shining!

Burnby Hall belonged to Percy and Katherine Stewart. Between 1906 and 1926, Percy and Katharine completed eight world tours, covering North America and Canada, Africa, India and the Far East, Europe, New Zealand, and the Pacific Islands with Percy using his trips to hunt, shoot and fish. He and Katharine brought back souvenirs and trophies which now form the Stewart Museum collection. These are an eclectic mix of statuary, hunting trophies and curiosities.

Katharine died in April 1939 and Percy remained at Burnby Hall for the remainder of his life. He lived until the grand old age of 90, assisted in later life by his faithful housekeeper Miss Tibbott.

Both he and Katharine had no children and decided to leave the estate in trust to the people of Pocklington when they died.

On his death in 1962, these wishes were complied with and the Stewart Trust, established in 1964 was set up to run Burnby Hall Gardens and to administer the Stewart Museum collection.

The gardens feature 2 lakes which hold a national collection of Waterlilies

So it was a stunning location for delivering our slime workshops! We delivered 2 workshops throughout the day, both being fully booked really early in the day! The children made 2 different kinds of slime and learnt the science behind the slime. Everyone had a great time and we had some lovely feedback from the parents.

On Thursday we travelled to Scunthorpe to the Engineering University Technical College, where they hosted a Primary Lego STEM event, for Year 5 pupils. We delivered our LEGO wind energy workshop to a really enthusiastic group of children! They had excellent LEGO building skills and worked really well together in teams.

This was a really successful workshop. All the children really enjoyed it! And so did we!

We’ve spent the rest of the week working on a new Astronomy course we’re putting together, to be delivered in our planetarium. Watch this space!! (see what I did there?)

Have a great weekend!

Katie, Carol, Anita and Lauren

The Lab Rascals Team xx

British Science Week 2019!

British Science Week, formerly known as the National Science & Engineering Week is a 10-day long science “feast” around the UK and the nation’s largest science celebration of its kind. The name was changed into British Science Week for two reasons. The first was for the event to reflect the organiser’s broad understanding of science which also includes social sciences, maths, technology and engineering. And the second reason was because the addition of “engineering” excluded other scientific fields, especially social sciences which are a part of science as well. British Science Week is one of our busiest weeks of the year! This week was no exception and we have been busy entertaining children in schools with science!

We started our week in Doncaster with 8 Planetarium shows. 200 children were treated to a tour of the solar system and they had some amazing questions about how our solar system began!

Pic courtesy of Grange Lane Infant Academy

Tuesday saw us heading off to Beeford for a full day of workshops on the states of matter with Beeford and North Frodingham primary schools. The kids loved seeing what happens to the marshmallows in the vacuum chamber and doing their own experiments with dry ice! We all had a great time!