Urdd EisteddBlog: Day 1 Blog 1
This week, CLIC is at the Urdd National Eisteddfod in Swansea. Each day, one of our writers will be sharing their experience of the festival. These are the Urdd Eisteddblogs, and this is emb789 blogging on day one...
At the Urdd Eisteddfod, there was a science room, where there were a few stalls with people doing sciencey things on them.
It felt like a mini Techniquest to me, but with a lot more excitement, as I've been to Techniquest so many times the magic has faded.
Unfortunately for me, almost all the writing was in Welsh, so I was constantly asking CrazyDistortion for translations. I don't think he minded too much, though. He didn't punch me, which is always a good thing the way I see it.
The first stall we looked at was a man doing a demonstration of the fun you can have with liquid nitrogen: he froze balloons then unfroze them and it was really cool!
He froze one of the CLIC wristbands for us and then smashed it into pieces. He also did something with magnets where he poured liquid nitrogen over a magnet then put other magnets on top of it and then the other magnets floated in mid-air. The only possible explanation is magic. That is how magnets work.
Next, there were some I Will For Wales people, and they showed us a graph that showed how many watts of energy different appliances use - mobile phone chargers use five watts, kettles use 2000 (bear in mind that these are averages).
The last stall we looked at before venturing out into the unknown was about microbes, and each microbe was represented by a little cuddly toy. There were also some petri dishes with smiley faces made out of bacteria in them.
There were some small children hitting things with hammers, and a skeleton wearing a surgeon's mask, but we didn't investigate these areas thoroughly. It definitely looked interesting, though.
It was all jolly good fun, and if you happen to be coming to the Eisteddfod, make sure you pop in on those sciencey folks, I'm sure you'll have a lot of fun.
For more photos of the Eisteddfod, check our Flickr album at the end of each day.
4 Comments – Postiwch sylw
cindyCLIC
Rhoddwyd sylw 11 mis yn ôl - 31st May 2011 - 11:48am
It was amazing to see how things froze within minutes when they were dropped into liquid nitrogen. They should have demonstrating making ice-cream and giving it out to all to try!
Stormer007
Rhoddwyd sylw 11 mis yn ôl - 31st May 2011 - 14:05pm
"He didn't punch me, which is always a good thing the way I see it."
I laughed.
And this all sounds very interesting. I can't wait to go! Expect my Eisteddblog (silly word) on either Thursday eve or Friday morn. =)
Awesome article emb!
CeefaxOfLife
Rhoddwyd sylw 11 mis yn ôl - 31st May 2011 - 14:25pm
I barely understand magnets but imagine if you were a caveman and came across them. You'd go out of your tiny Neanderthal mind.
CrazyDistortion
Rhoddwyd sylw 11 mis yn ôl - 6th June 2011 - 00:23am
Ah, just remembered something that the man doing this said about. The dude in the thing said that there was a mistake on here. It wasn't two magnets, it was a magnet and a super conductor (or something else, though I'm positive he said super conductor). Not sure which one was which, but I remember him saying that. Just thought I'd mention that.
But yeah, t'was a good'un. The liquid nitrogen thing was smashing (ha).