Live Labs 2024
On the evenings of the 25th November and 2nd December, we filled the Warwick Arts Centre foyer with scientific activities and demonstrations from staff and students at the University of Warwick at the Live labs! We got our hands on lots of different science happening around the university before seeing it on the stage at the Warwick Christmas lectures, organised by the department of physics.
Dr Jack Woolley and his team from the Physics department showed us how through some magic glasses, we can see how lasers are able to change into different shapes. We also got to see how different household objects such as honey can change colour under ultraviolet light, and saw a tornado generator in action!
Dr Phil Jemmett and the team from WMG showed us all the exciting work going on in their department. Dr India Palmer filled us in on everything about Heat Pumps, a sustainable way to heat our houses using pressure. We had a go at heating a small house using a bicycle pump and amazingly saw the temperature increase.
Medics Chloe Edwards and Paul Lowrie talked to us about all the different organs of the body, in particular the heart. We saw a model and some diagrams that helped us understand how the heart really functions, and we got a chance to learn how to listen to each others heartbeats using stethoscopes. How many of you would be able to tell the different chambers of the heart apart following this fun activity?
We then dived into all things virtual reality with Candela VR, who showed us their innovative VR for teaching physics. We found our that outside of computers and textbooks, we can also use virtual reality to learn new things! How would you feel about having VR in the classroom? Do you think it would help your learning?
The Sadler group introduced us to the multicolour properties of red cabbage to show us how acidic or alkaline different household objects are. So many of us were also surprised to learn from them that cornflakes are magnetic as they contain such a high amount of iron! We also got a chance to see part of the impressive periodic table constructed by the group!
How good are you at guessing the ages of people? Luke Murray Kearney and his team gave us a chance to find this out, and we found it was a lot harder than we were expecting! Results from the game can help us learn more about with situations where we’re asked to recall someone’s age, such as tracking who we are in contact with if we are ill.
Onwards, we learned of all things microscopes with Dr David Corcoran and Dr Laura Cooper from Warwick Medical Group. We tried counting cells as fast as we could, and found out how a computer can do this for us at lightning speed. We even got to check out a microscope that both David and Laura use in their scientific research.
Dr Erin Greaves and her team introduced us to a much overlooked organ: the uterus! We learned that this organ can change in size over the course of pregnancy, from just being the size of a pear to the size of a watermelon, and is able to regenerate its lining every month!
The School of Engineering, lead by Outreach leader Dr Oksana Trushkevych, showed us how many exciting things can be made just from 3D printing, including a coffee table and a drone. We found out how engineering can be used to calculate dimensions of buildings to ensure they aren’t damaged by earthquakes, and we also saw some exciting objects that had been sent to the edge of space!
We then headed to outer space with Dr Andy Buchan with his video game Orbital Enemies. There was a lot of fun to be had playing as a planet, avoiding meteor storms and a giant black hole that sucks everything up! We had some high scorers in the game, 30,067 being the biggest score of the night!
Before the night, a lot of us hadn’t ever had the chance to try out coding, so it was a lot of fun to see what this was like with Coding with Sophie! Dr Rebecca Nealon and her team introduced us to the astronaut Sophie and we tried out coding that could be used to help her rocket get into space.
We hope you had a fantastic time at the Live labs!