Wednesday, 2nd December 2015 – Christmas Cheer
Some tasty treats and teasers for you 
at Christmas! With a festive assortment from Jack, Chris, Edmund and Patsy, you can be assured of a heart-warming afternoon:
10 minute talks on Christmas science, a quick quiz, games, mulled wine with mince pies and cake, and many prizes ~ what else could you wish for!
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Wednesday, 3rd December 2014 – “Christmas Cheer”: Christmas Menu Mulled wine Christmas Baking and Christmas Drinks – what is the common denominator? Yeast! We will be serving up a variety of science morsels: physics, chemistry, biology, astronomy and domestic! Come along and sample them all. |
Well, what a cracking afternoon we had. No sun to be seen in the sky, but Christine P, Sue W and Chris P reminded us it was the middle of summer by serving up delicious strawberry cream teas.
Twelve teams entered the contest, with many of them using the “egg” theme for their name: Eggsacting, Eggstatic, Eggythump, Eggcentric, Eggbound, Ovum and Lincolnshire Poachers. After Patsy had explained the rules (see the other post), the teams chose their eggstraordinary names and selected their numbered eggs. With only 30 minutes to complete their designs, there
Scramble for materials
was a bit of a scramble for materials before they could set to work.
it’s all about cooperation!
It was clear that some teams had given serious thought to the task, and had even eggsperimented at home; they finished well within the allotted time.
One they prepared earlier???
Others were making full use of the time to perfect their construction.
Finally, the egg-timer ran out and all the packaged eggs were re-weighed.
Patsy then called the teams to order for the judging.
Tension mounts as the eggs are tested
The audience was getting eggstremely eggscited by now, as Patsy took each packaged egg in turn and dropped it from a standard height onto the hard floor.
Testing the “crash helmets”
The packages were then carefully unwrapped and eggsamined to check for broken eggs and, amazingly, 9 out of the 12 eggs were unbroken. As tensions rose to an eggscruciating level, the unbroken eggs were ranked in order of package weight…
…and the winners were… Sputnik!
Sputnik being weighed
Sputnik by name, and sputnik by design: of all the eggs which stayed intact after being dropped, the one protected by the lightest weight of packaging (just 10.62 grams) was that of Sydney May, Vera Horsley and Ann Parker. Their minimalist packaging was very effective, and the projecting straws certainly gave it the look of a satellite.
For the most artistic appearance, team Eggstatic, comprising Sue Abbott and Derrick Fewings and egged-on by Alf Rubery, came up with an almost eggstra-terrestrial sputnik-like design to beat the rest.
Eggstatic’s sputnik scored highly for artistic impression
Overall, an eggsellent afternoon!
(Hope you didn’t mind all the corny yolks!)
Wednesday, 4th July 2012– Patsy Colvin is organising a meeting with a difference!
Egg Drop Fail – courtesy xkcd
For this year’s Summer Spectacular, we are running a special event where everyone can get involved. The general idea is to make some kind of “safety harness” or “crash helmet” using a variety of packaging materials that would allow an egg to be dropped, within its packaging, from a height without breaking on impact. Prizes for the winning pair!
All materials will be provided, but a pair of scissors might be useful 😉
Even if you don’t want to try your hand at this, you can still come along to cheer on the most inventive teams, or just enjoy the strawberry teas on a [hopefully] pleasant summer’s afternoon.
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Simplified rules
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Put it in your diary now, Wednesday, July 4th at 1.55pm – it should be a cracking afternoon!
On Tuesday 1st March retired professor Ian Barclay from John Moores University, came along to pose the question, “Why on earth did they invent that?”
Ian gave us a witty and stimulating account of inventions through the ages and the ups and downs of inventing. Interspersed with quiz questions about the most unlikely and bizarre items, he explained why some inventions become world-wide successes or crazes and why others never make it.
Another absorbing afternoon, with 51 people turning up. Methinks our reputation is growing!
Aughton & Ormskirk U3A Science Group (Archived) 