We're very excited and delighted to welcome a new regional science video competition to our ever-growing SciCast family! Yes, that's right! Hands on Science have started their Science Rap Video Competition for young people between ages 7-16 from the South East of Wales, and we were at their launch event.

The event was fantastic. Laura Roberts, the Hands on Science coordinator, had prepared a morning filled with inspiration and fun: playing videos from previous SciCast entries and having two amazing and talented artists - science rapper Jon Chase and science singer Jonny Berliner - performing live.

The competition, funded by the National HE STEM Programme with sponsorship from the Science Photo Library, in conjunction with SciCast, challenges young people from South East of Wales and ages 7-16 to write a rap or song about Physics and record a 2½ minute video of them performing it. These entries can also be submitted to SciCast and take on a national recognition.

Big thanks to Laura and her team at Hands on Science, and to all the schools that came to the event or are planning to take part in this fun and creative challenge.

We wish them the best of luck and hope to be able to share all the videos with you at this year's SciCast Awards.

Richmond Council started running a magnificent local version of SciCast way back in the early days, and the National Physical Laboratory have this year taken over. You can read more about their competition here, but the important info is that tonight they held their glittering awards ceremony.

left: former SciCast winner, event organiser, and all-round irrepressible madman Andrew Hanson of NPL and Dr. Yan Wong from Bang Goes The Theory lead a massed wineglass choir at the event.

right: the wineglass attempt continues with a brave (ie. decidedly foolish) attempt to tune the audiences' glasses to notes played on a keyboard left over from Andrew's glam-rock days.

The nominated films were terrific. Richmond films have traditionally fared well in the SciCast Awards, and I very much look forward to sharing this year's crop with you. They set a high standard.

Well, some do. Some are plain ridiculous. But hey, that's SciCast.

left: Yan and Andrew 'enjoy' the results of their aural choreography.

Particularly welcome were a whole bunch of schools new to the competition, and we spotted several films that break new ground for SciCast. Four years and several hundred films in, that's a heck of an achievement, and the sort of thing that gets me hugely excited all over again.

Big thanks to Andrew and his team at the NPL, and to all the schools and happy people behind-the-scenes in Richmond. Lovely to see old friends again, and to meet so many newcomers.

Yay!

The photos from the glittering Awards event at the Royal Institution are up: see portraits of the nominees and winners, the ceremony itself, and a glimpse behind-the-scenes of us setting up during the morning.

We'll be scurrying around trying to caption and label as many of the stills as we can, but do jump in and leave notes and comments if you like. You should also be able to download full-size versions of each photograph by clicking the 'All sizes' button that appears above the image when you click through to its page.

Here are the Nominations for the Planet SciCast Awards 2009. Not all these films are viewable yet -- we'll be catching up as quickly as we can, so keep checking back to see which new ones we've published!

Best Presenter 2009

• Music to Our Ears -- Thunderbolt Three
• Why do Boats Float? -- Floating Physics
• Sound -- Duke and Dave
• The Floating Tea Bag -- Teabag Techs

Award for Technical & Artistic Achievement 2009

• The God Particle -- Vibrant Films
• Explaining Fibre Optics -- Nower Hill High School
• Volcanic Islands -- Helston Science
• How Wavelength Affects Pitch -- Team Phree

Flipside Most Entertaining Film 2009

• Wibbly Wobbly Jelly -- Le Hom
• The Geiger-Müller Groove -- Let's Get Physical
• Pressure and the Gas Laws -- It's Physics Time
• Boat Bother -- Super Hero Scientists
• Relativity and Warp Drives -- Space Hoppers
• Atmospheric Pressure -- The Air Heads

Best Original Score 2009

• The Geiger-Müller Groove -- Let's Get Physical
• Transcription and Translation: The Latest Sensation! -- Demented Student Productions
• Photosynthesis -- BB Productions
• Levitating Lime -- Team Jayman

Best Chemistry Film 2009

• Professor Hartley's Science Lesson (2M) -- Year 2M
• Chemistry Attack!! -- LangClang
• Exploding Water -- Team Tom
• The Screaming Jelly Baby -- Josh & Mathew

Best Earth Science and Environment Film 2009

• Breezeblocks -- Legotown Productions
• Pollution -- Aaarrgghh!! -- Eagle Eye 9
• The Formation of Crude Oil -- Crazy Chemistry Demonstrations
• Volcanic Islands -- Helston Science

Best Biology Film 2009

• Why do Ants Wear Sunglasses? -- BaSSic Studios
• Photosynthesis -- BB Productions
• Six Steps to a Perfect Poo -- Helston Science
• Olympic Flowers -- Badminton Junior School
• Mrs. Gren -- Badminton Junior School

The Engineering and Technology Board Best Engineering Film 2009

• Building Bridges -- Treacherous Two
• Water Rockets -- How They Work -- SAS JGS Productions
• Death of a Toothbrush -- Protons for Breakfast
• EMP Launcher v2 -- The Tinkerers

The Institute of Physics' Best SciCast Physics Film 2009

• The Geiger-Müller Groove -- Let's Get Physical
• Pollution -- Aaarrgghh!! -- Eagle Eye 9
• Explaining Fibre Optics -- Nower Hill High School
• How Wavelength Affects Pitch -- Team Phree
• Lasers -- thegroupwithnoname
• Atmospheric Pressure -- The Air Heads

EPSRC Best Film (Adults) 2009

• The Immiscible Love Story -- Aksheusz Studios
• It's About Time (you switched off your television set and did physics instead) -- Small Dog Productions
• Buckley's Double-Acting Baking Powder -- Dan and Agnes
• Levitation: Science or Magic? -- Shift Productions

Best Film (Primary) 2009

• Absolute Absorbency or Not? -- Barnes Primary 61!
• Orbiting X-Factor -- 5R Orbiting X-Factor Script Editors
• Mrs. Gren -- Badminton Junior School
• Electricity -- Team SciStars

Best Film (Secondary) 2009

• The God Particle -- Vibrant Films
• The Geiger-Müller Groove -- Let's Get Physical
• The Formation of Crude Oil -- Crazy Demonstrations
• Atmospheric Pressure -- The Air Heads

Notes

Nominees will receive certificates, together with invitations to the glittering Awards Ceremony, to be held at the Royal Institution in London on 30^th March 2009. Category winners will be announced at the Ceremony: winning teams will receive individual mini-awards and a coveted 'SciCastie' block award for the team, along with Amazon vouchers.

Congratulations and good luck to all the nominees, and our thanks to everyone who submitted a film.

Due to popular demand, we're going to sneak a little information out about the 2009 Awards. Judging is happening now (Iain Stewart tells us he's watching the films from internet cafés in South-East Iran. Gosh), and if you haven't seen your film on the main site yet, don't panic - the judges have a special site just for them, which has all the 2008/9 films.

We're planning to announce the nominations next Friday, 6th March, here on the blog. Some of the precise wording of the category names might change (which is to say: you never quite know what's going to be written on a trophy until it comes back from the engravers), but more-or-less the categories are:

• Best Presenter 2009
• Best Original Score 2009
• Award for Technical and Artistic Achievement 2009
  
• Best Biology Film 2009
  
• Best Chemistry Film 2009
  
• Best Earth Science and Environment Film 2009
• The Engineering and Technology Board Best Engineering Film 2009
• The Flipside Most Entertaining Film 2009
• The Institute of Physics Best Physics Film 2009
• EPSRC Best Film (Adults) 2009
• Best Film (Primary) 2009
• Best Film (Secondary) 2009

We liked last year's trophies, they're good weighty things that look terrific in a display case, but up close some of them were a little wonky. Now, the best SciCast films also tend to be a little scruffy around the edges, so we weren't worried, but we knew we had to change the design for the big SciCast d'Or trophy for Best Film. It just about survived this photo, but it was already in several pieces by then, and it didn't survive the afternoon. Oops.

Behold, then, the test shots of the SciCast Awards 2009 - they look like this:

American science teacher, video fan, and SciCast supporter David Colarusso is holding his second annual physics film competition, under the catchy name of 'Phylm.' Check the website for the dead-simple rules, chuck your film on YouTube to enter, and have your say by voting everyone else's films up or down.

You might have noticed these creeping in over the last few days, but: they're back! It's a slightly different set of photos to before, so if you're missing one you particularly wanted please drop us a line.

Good places to start are the Ceremony and Reception sets, or just dive in to the full album. As before, if you click through to individual photos you'll find an 'all sizes' button that allows you to download large versions for printing.

We took the photos down, by the way, because we'd casually given everyone at the event a name badge. Since we've spent the last two years trying very hard to avoid publishing likeness, name and school for individual children, this wasn't the brightest thing we've done. This new set of photos, then, has names painted out (some more neatly than others, I'm sorry to say), and next year the badges will be first names only.

Live and learn, eh?

We've posted loads -- and we really do mean loads -- of photos from last Friday's awards to the SciCast Flickr account.

If you click through to the individual photos you'll find an 'All sizes' button, which allows you to download a really gigantic version of each photo, suitable for printing.

We'll work our way through and caption the photos as best we can, but you can help us by leaving comments. In particular, do let us know if we've labelled anything incorrectly, and we'll get it sorted.

(These photos are all by Laura Mtungwazi, who worked her socks off and did a great job.)

[UPDATE Saturday 3/5/2008: we've taken the gallery down temporarily while we sort some details. The photos will be back as soon as we can manage.]

[UPDATE 2 Thursday 8/5/2008: The photos are back up again - see this post for details.]