Films

A Wee Bit of Science

Wed, 22 Jun 2011 15:00:00 +0000

Live demonstration of the effect of water on your wee.

Winner: Best Biology Film, 2011

Radio Carbon Dating

Wed, 22 Jun 2011 14:00:00 +0000

Describes how to use radio carbon dating (or C-14 dating) to find out the age of ancient artefacts, in this case a human bone (from poor old Stanley the Roman.

The film was made by a year 10 Physics class (average age 15). All of the class contributed in some way. Script was written by the team, with just a little checking from class teacher to check the Physics was OK.

Centripetal Force

Wed, 22 Jun 2011 10:30:00 +0000

In this video, I do an experiment which involves me swinging a bucket of water over my head and hopefully not getting wet! After the experiment, we go inside to have a look at the science behind this crazy experiment.

Nominee: Best Presentation, 2011

The Test

Wed, 22 Jun 2011 10:00:00 +0000

Alpha, beta and gamma sit exams on paper and aluminium. Who will pass the tests?

Gravity

Wed, 22 Jun 2011 09:30:00 +0000

Team Arda, Dylan, Nathan and Cerys write:

Gravity.

Ah, we’re spotting a pattern here, right? Lots of these films with no notes are from the same school.

Sorry, took us a while to work out what was going on there.

Sound

Wed, 22 Jun 2011 09:00:00 +0000

Team Aimee, Melissa, Johanna and Tommylee write:

Sound.

…most of which we’d got from the title, right?

Email

Tue, 21 Jun 2011 16:00:00 +0000

Describes, in the medium of Brio, how emails are sent across the internet as packets using different routes.

More notes on packet switched networks

Winner: Best Engineering Film, 2011

Fusion Love

Tue, 21 Jun 2011 15:30:00 +0000

Team Fusion Love write:

…

NOTHING! Aw… sniff

Groovy Lava

Tue, 21 Jun 2011 15:00:00 +0000

Go back in time to the peace and love of the 60s and join our happy hippies as they investigate the science behind the lava lamp. Groovy! Experiment based on science homework sheet given out to year 8 pupils from Halliford School, Sunbury.

Gravity!!

Tue, 21 Jun 2011 14:30:00 +0000

Team John, Louis, Alan & Thomas write:

The Effects of Gravity.

Nominee: Best Presentation, 2011

2-Minute Cell

Tue, 21 Jun 2011 14:00:00 +0000

Team Year 12 Biology write:

Is it cookery or is it cell manufacture?

Gravity

Tue, 21 Jun 2011 13:30:00 +0000

Team Pauline, Keiran & Jenna-Rose write:

Gravity.

No, really, that’s all the notes they sent us!

Bee Aware

Tue, 21 Jun 2011 13:00:00 +0000

A film about bees to raise awareness of how they help us and what we can do to save them.

Nominee: Best Earth Science & Environment Film, 2011

Ice Lift

Tue, 21 Jun 2011 12:30:00 +0000

This shows how amazing water is! Pouring salt on an ice cube to lower the freezing point we can use only string to lift the ice cube, as the freezing point rises back to 0 degrees C.

From Institute of Physics postcards.

Nominee: IOP Best Physics Film (Primary), 2011

Mr Frog's Bad Day

Tue, 21 Jun 2011 12:00:00 +0000

This film came about after the school Senior Science Club (which is for pupils in Year 9 and above) noticed that many students in our science lessons, including ourselves, struggled to tell the difference between the terms ‘precise’, ‘accurate’ and ‘reliable’. We decided to make a sort film that could be shown in lessons to help people remember, as we knew that correct use of these terms was an easy way to improve marks in all three sciences.

We decided to base our film on the ‘Mr Men’ books, using a simple storyline, bright colours and naming our characters after the terms they were representing and having them behave accordingly. We also introduced Mr Random, to act as a contrast to the three more serious characters and provide more opportunities for comedy. In order to provide an alternative analogy to the dart board usually used to explain these terms, we decided to have our characters playing golf. Mr Random refusing to stand up during the animation of his shot was an unexpected bonus.

Filming was fun but tedious as we had to do the smallest changes to get the smoothest animation possible. This was the reason why Hannah and Tessa got left to do most of it, and the final scene was done entirely by Hannah. To film the live action parts meant digging a hole in the field and hiding a sieve in a small pond. We were supervised; Hannah was filming and Tessa was the one with throwing the ball and had to keep fishing it out the dirty pond water! There are many outtakes because of people(Tessa) getting in the shot and the thrower(Tessa) missing the target or not getting the right angle of rebound. One of the best bits was filming the sounds. It was amazing to see how random objects can make unrelated sound. A golf ball hitting a gas canister is the sound of Mr Frog’s head! Putting the animation together itself was a much a challenge as the filming. We ended up doing it on Hannah’s laptop, in the school holidays, which didn’t like the fact that so many pictures were being used. We had to save after adding five new photos just in case it decided to crash, which happened many times. We also worked on the music (which took many tries to get perfect) at Hannah’s house.

Mr Frog himself, although the film is named after him, began his life with us playing with leftover plastercine after making the other characters, then got put into the film as an animal that Mr Random’s golf ball would always hit. We were trying to come up with the title for the film, we wanted to distance it from anything generally considered boring, and make it sound fun and interesting. Thus, we decided to name it after Mr Frog, as a comic, non-scientific character who we believe would help capture the interest of students who don’t enjoy or found it difficult, the general target audience for the film. And so Mr Frog went from having no real mention to the title character in a month. And we will not be begrudging him his day off tomorrow!