You’re listening to the FizzicsEd Podcast. For hundreds of ideas, free experiments and more, go to fizzicseducation.com.au. And now, here’s your host, Ben Newsome.

Ben Newsome: Yes, welcome again to another FizzicsEd podcast. My name is Ben Newsome, and this week is a little different. Yeah, normally we have a lot of interviews to, you know, a whole bunch of different people doing education type things for people in classrooms and museums and things. However, this time, it’s all about what happened at last weekend’s innovation games.

Now, the innovation games is a new thing. It was put on by Sydney Olympic Park together with National Science Week and Inspiring Australia support, and a number of our partners like Samsung and NRMA and so forth, for a genuinely large public festival.

We’re talking about 4,000, maybe even 5,000 people attending a STEM festival on the last week of Science Week. And uh, oh boy, it uh, it certainly was very, very busy. We had drones, we had talks about zombies, we had talk about liquid nitrogen, all sorts of stuff.

And uh, so this means that the audio you’re going to hear is going to be a little bit gritty. It’s going to be live in the middle of a festival with all sorts of families doing all sorts of science stuff. But it’s worth your time because it’ll give you a bit of an idea about what different people have been doing.

Now, I would have loved to have collected all the audio that we actually recorded, uh, but the issue is, of course, a live event like this, you got people shouting over the microphone. We actually were, when you actually hear, you’ll hear me I’m talking actually, not just to yourself listening in the podcast, but I was actually projecting onto a large screen, a big screen in the middle of Sydney Olympic Park, which meant uh, we had a bit of fun trying to make sure we could position the microphone in amongst the big TV camera as well.

But it certainly was a lot of fun. Now, to give you a heads-up, there are lots of people involved. We had Young Scientists of Australia, we had the Children’s Discovery Museum, we had Ecohort, we had the Royal Botanic Gardens Seed Bank, we had Cleanaway, we had Rock & Crystals. We had this cool automated car held by NRMA, and there was another car which is built for electric car by Own Boy.

Ben Newsome: We had the Sydney Olympic Park Authority’s Ecology and Heritage Teams there, we had Fizzics Education doing stuff. UTS Graduate School of Health, I mean, the list just keeps going on. There was augmented reality, uh thanks for Rob McTaggart. Uh, there was Marramu Indigenous Youth, you get it. There was a whole bunch of things going on.

Dr. Cameron Webb dropped by to talk about mozzies and, you know, public health. We had Kelly Simpson talking about zombies, seriously, zombies and epidemiology and using the maths behind that. Dr. Karl popped in and talked, you know, talked about everything from astronomy through to belly button fluff, seriously, he really did. Uh, you talking heaps, Australian Museum, the whole lot. There was so much going on at this particular festival, it’s really hard to cram it into one podcast episode.

And even after that rather long list, I still need to give a shout out to even more people. We had the people from One Giant Leap, that is a foundation that’s helping kids understand and use drones, actually flying drones with help of CASA, which is wicked. They really had huge drones, not just the ones you see in retail stores. They had them down on the grounds, it was very cool to see them going.

By the way, One Giant Leap also helps kids go to space camp in Alabama, in Huntsville, Alabama, which is just awesome for kids to find out, because a lot of kids don’t even realise it’s even possible. So, thanks very much, One Giant Leap for getting involved.

Ben Newsome: We had the NRL Game Development Crew down, and they were there to see who was the fastest in the festival. And what we mean by that is they genuinely had like, you know, those police radar guns. They were using that to work out who was the fastest across the field. And there were some generally really quick kids, which is really cool to check out.

Uh, we had some short films going through on Scinema, which is, uh, if you’ve not heard of Scinema, it’s a series of short films, you know, involving science, which is, you know, quite cool to get involved with as well. We really did, we had so many things involved and so many different people helping out. We even had the crew from Beards On, which is an interesting group that promotes conservation awareness through taking people’s beards off, literally.

Uh, either full beard or a half beard. And the reason why is that not only is it visible, it helps raise money to look after the environment. So, Beards On crew were there and we certainly enjoyed having them along. So, you can hear there was a lot happening at such a large festival such as the innovation games.

So, because of this, make sure you just jump on our blog for this particular episode and we’ll have a full list of all the links to the people who are involved. And uh, I know that it’s certainly worth your time. Just again, as I mentioned before, just listen through the grit, listen through the little bit of the audio back, you know, back chatter and all the bit of noise going on. That’s what’s going to happen in the major festival, but uh certainly we had some interesting people to talk to.

Ben Newsome: Dr. Cameron Webb, welcome to the Innovation Games.

Cameron Webb: Yeah, thanks. It’s great to be here.

Ben Newsome: Mate, I am so stoked to have you along. What are you going to tell the public?

Cameron Webb: We’re going to explain a little bit about the science behind mosquito bites. And so, even though it’s in the middle of winter, it’ll be great to sort of share why mosquitoes bite, how they find uh people to bite and how people react to mosquito bites.

Ben Newsome: I was just having a chat with some people just around the corner. They were talking about, oh my gosh, one of my friends has dengue fever and uh we’re going to Africa soon, what should we do? Like, I mean, you must get questions like this all the time.

Cameron Webb: Yeah, and that’s okay because I don’t mind sharing tips and tricks on avoiding mosquito bites for people. Doesn’t matter whether they’re having a holiday up and down the coast in Australia every summer or they’re travelling overseas to Bali or other uh exotic destinations, protecting yourself from mosquito bites is the best way to prevent mosquito-borne disease.

Ben Newsome: Fantastic. Now this is the innovation games. I mean, that means it’s all about innovation and what’s coming up in the future. So I just have to ask, in your world, what is coming up? What do you know is down the pipeline?

Cameron Webb: Yeah, there’s some fantastic innovations when it comes to mosquito control. So, hundreds of years ago, we used to drain swamps and pour chemicals onto our wetlands to kill mosquitoes, but now we’re much more mindful of the environment. And we’re looking at ways that we can control mosquitoes or maybe even stop them from spreading the pathogens that cause disease without relying on insecticides and so, things like genetic modification or the introduction of pathogens or parasites into the mosquitoes is a really clever way to do it. And so we’ll see, going to see more and more of that in years ahead.

Ben Newsome: That’s so exciting. Now you’re due on stage in three minutes time, so I can’t hold you up. Look, much appreciated and uh enjoy the afternoon.

Cameron Webb: Thanks very much for having me. See you.

Ben Newsome: Yeah, good day everyone. It’s Ben again, here at the Innovation Games, Sydney Olympic Park. I hope you’re having an awesome day. And speaking of having an awesome day, I know Karen at the Australian Museum certainly has been.

Karen: It’s been a fabulous morning. It’s been really busy uh down here at the uh Frog ID, uh tent here for the Australian Museum and it’s always wonderful to be at Sydney Olympic Park.

Ben Newsome: Oh, absolutely and it’s a gorgeous day. Hey, what sort of things can they come do at the Australian Museum’s uh marquee here?

Karen: Well, we’ve got a new programme called FrogID. It’s all about identifying frogs by their calls. Um so we’ve got some push buttons that kids can hear some frog calls.

Ben Newsome: Yeah.

Karen: And um lots of different interactives on frogs and life cycles and they can either create, even create their own frog species and give it their own call that we’re putting up on Twitter at the #FrogID.

Ben Newsome: Oh gosh, what call could you make that be? That’d be what?

Karen: Hey, we have had some amazing choices. I think we’ve had high-pitched squeals, even some roars. Um so yeah, pretty much anything that kids can imagine we, they can create for us today.

Ben Newsome: So there you go. So we got Dr. Cameron Webb talking about mozzies down on stage and we’ve got people like Karen Player talking about frogs up here. It’s a great day here at Innovation Games.

Ben Newsome: So, Kelly Simpson, welcome to the Innovation Games.

Kelly Simpson: Thanks for having me.

Ben Newsome: Yeah, absolutely. Now you’re about to talk on stage about zombies. Now that grabbed my attention straight away. Uh, why are you talking about zombies?

Kelly Simpson: Well, I personally think zombies are really fascinating, but I think they’re a great way to explain disease and disease transmission. Yep. Um, with a really fun way. So, I’m an epidemiologist, so I look at disease in a population. And I think zombie viruses much more exciting than the diseases I work on.

Ben Newsome: It’ll certainly grab people’s attention without a doubt. Yep. No worries. So what are you going to be talking about when it comes to epidemiology with the public?

Kelly Simpson: So, I’m going to be talking about why maths is probably a better way to solve a zombie outbreak than guns and violence. So, if we can put the clues together, if we can work out where the zombies are coming from, when the zombie virus started, that’s a better way to stop a zombie outbreak than just shooting a whole bunch of zombies.

Ben Newsome: So your job is to stop World War Z.

Kelly Simpson: Pretty much, yeah.

Ben Newsome: Yeah, got it. Fantastic. Look, uh, Dr. Cameron Webb was only up here recently talking about mosquitoes and, you know, stopping dengue fever, malaria and everything else like that. Um, I’m imagining you’re running into a number of people who work in epidemiology and entomology and everywhere else. Um, you’re in the University of Sydney. Yeah. What do you do there exactly?

Kelly Simpson: I’m doing a PhD looking at Salmonella in humans and animals. So, it’s transmitted um from wildlife but also from food, and there’s a whole lot of ways we can catch it. So I’m looking at um a one particular type, and we think it’s in the environment somewhere. So trying to hunt down where it’s coming from and stopping the cases.

Ben Newsome: So it’s not just from soft cheeses. It’s all over the place.

Kelly Simpson: No, it’s all over the place. Yeah. So pretty much everywhere and anywhere is Salmonella in any sort of type of animal. If it’s got a gut, it’s probably got Salmonella.

Ben Newsome: And this is fantastic to know because I’m about to have lunch here at the Innovation Games. And uh hopefully it’s been cooked at a pretty high temperature and uh look, much appreciated for coming along. I know you’re about to be up on stage. Uh, enjoy your afternoon.

Kelly Simpson: Great, thanks very much.

Ben Newsome: Cheers.

Ben Newsome: Yes, welcome again to the Innovation Games. I hope you’re having an awesome National Science Week. Now, big hello to you. I’m taking you, I’m sure you have. Totally. We’re down here with Own Boy, talk about Own Boy. Now, I’m a scientist, I know what Own Boy is taking about. What about Own Boy? What is the ETA all about when it comes to Own Boy?

Own Boy: Yeah, Own Boy is sort of a measure of electrical resistance. So it’s to measure current, electric motor, electric circuit. Um, I like Own Boy but there’s some very cool things about Own Boy that we’re talking about today.

Ben Newsome: That’s some exciting stuff. Now you’re driving around in it. Check out this vehicle. I mean, not only is it a number plate, there’s certainly some stuff going on the base. Tell me what’s going on with this car.

Own Boy: Our part of the association we’ve been working for since 1973, we convert fast cars to electric. Uh so this car has been fully modernised after all the picture are out, the battery’s in there, and a big electric motor. Uh it’s really good to drive. It’s really good fun. If you want to get involved in electric cars, you can pick your car today.

Ben Newsome: That was it taken what an effort to put together. How long did that take?

Own Boy: About a year. Um, off and on. I still got a couple weekends and stuff like that, but guys down park and doing it really fast, depending on what sort of car you want to do. Um, and it gets about 150k range. I’m plugging it in at night at the power point and away I go, got to be quiet and peaceful. Good for the environment, it’s awesome.

Ben Newsome: What’s the most unusual car you’ve converted so far?

Own Boy: Um, I’ve got a Mustang and all sorts of stuff. So, I got a smart car. The smart car we did was really hard to do all the electronics and stuff like that. We had the trick into thinking it still had a petrol motor. And uh, once you got around all that, it was a real challenge, but a lot of very rewarding once it was done. Yeah.

Ben Newsome: That was. And people can get involved in this too. Yeah, what’s involved in that?

Own Boy: Uh, buying all the components, from electric motors, stuff from the cars, the different battery technology. Things are changing really fast.

Ben Newsome: So there’s a number of things going. What are we seeing on the screen right now?

Own Boy: Uh, so this is the controller, the batteries down, the great buttons that get a lot of interest because people have to push that. Um, we got different battery technologies, big DC motor up in there. So, you guys can make a car, an electric motor. Um, and more about the car, how far you’re going for.

Ben Newsome: That’s fantastic. So uh, if anyone’s involved, you got to love Own Boy. Where can we see Own Boy again?

Own Boy: Um, just google Australia Electric Vehicle Association. We got our website, they’ve got Own Boy. Um, they’ve got about three hundred styles.

Ben Newsome: Yeah, so you can see numbers, there’s lots of stuff. Yeah.

Own Boy: Yeah, you’ve got it. Yeah.

Ben Newsome: Yeah, this Innovation Game is happening again. That’s right. Yep, yep. Of course. Yeah, check out Own Boy. Own Boy is invited, filled with a whole bunch of things. Look, I hope you’re having a top time at the Innovation Games. We’ll catch you soon.

Ben Newsome: Yes, we’re here at the Innovation Games, and I got to love this. They can see they haven’t been doing. Yeah, you guys are trying while up the space, you can see all sorts of stuff because things are living and they’re wild and they’re from Australia. Hey, what have we got here?

Zoo Keeper: Uh, this is a python.

Ben Newsome: Oh, a python. Okay. Her name’s Ticklebell. Ticklebell. Yeah. You can Ticklebell. How old is Ticklebell?

Zoo Keeper: Uh, she’s about two or three years old. And uh, she’s very friendly. Oh. She’s very friendly. Yeah. And uh, she’s been on this, hanging out with these guys here all day. Um, flying on people. And she can see her sisters as well, which is good.

Ben Newsome: Well, uh, they’re large in Darwin, my name’s Mike Getchin. Uh, they can grow to be uh half of your arm or a bit more, and they get very, very big. Um, and what’s it like living inside roofs because they’re warm? Yeah. There’s usually rats living in there.

Zoo Keeper: Yeah, they’re quite a fan of that.

Ben Newsome: So they’re heading to get rats in the roof there is called predation. Yeah, that’s it. That’s it exactly right. Now I just, I think I was, uh, bring you out this morning. Talk about people. I don’t have time to talk about that right. Get that again if you like. Hey, I’m always here with them. Now, you guys have got clearly the space, you got a lots of schools and through, yeah, that’s it. Uh, yes, so we’re at mobile educational programme. So we have a park, things that just lots of people in. You come out to any event that you want us to do.

Zoo Keeper: And then you can, many, many different times and we just educate people on animals and how to take care of them and how to make sure they’re being protected, and how people can take care of the environment at the same time. And National Science Week has been incredibly busy. Yeah. Yeah, it really does. It really, really does. Uh, it’s a good week, lots of people, uh, use your science quite a bit, so it’s good for teaching them a little bit about uh, how these animals work. Especially there’s lots of animals that just live wildly around these parks. So, it’s the first time something.

Ben Newsome: What are the animals you have here today?

Zoo Keeper: Uh, I got a cool little crocodile, which is quite blue. Um, we have the turtle. I’ve got a possum, frog, and my favorite I’ve got a ten-year-old goanna. Fantastic. That’s a big lizard. That was a big lizard. Big python, mean it was a python. Oh, I don’t know, I don’t know. Python. Yeah. So, super mod, not as good a name, but yeah. He’s a python. Oh, there we go. There we go. Say hello. Look, obviously, you can see you guys are loving it. You’re going to come with me. Yeah. This thing.

Speaker: To get me ready, I think I’m going to need a countdown and maybe someone with an ambulance just like ready to go, in case, in case you need to call it. Is that okay? Someone’s got that covered. Alright. Alright, everyone. Let’s get a countdown from three, two, one. I’m okay. What do you think’s going on?

Yes. Oh. Probably to wait for impact there. You’re exactly right. It’s all about how many nails I’m sitting on. Now, I think a few of you might be thinking, maybe Aram James got some fake nails there, but these aren’t fake nails. They’re definitely real nails. I know that because I hammered them through the piece of wood myself. So they’re definitely real nails and I don’t have special pants on. It’s all because I’ve got 194 of them.

And we can do an experiment to help us understand this. If you take one finger like this, and you push it really hard into the side of your head. Ouch. That hurts. But if it doesn’t, if it’s not hurting, you’re not pushing hard enough. But if you try with your whole hand, and you push that into the side of your head, that doesn’t really hurt. When you’ve got just one finger, all of your pushing force is concentrated in a really small area.

So that makes it hurt. But when you’ve got your whole hand, that pushing force is spread out. And it’s the same thing that’s happening on with all of my nails. Because I’ve got 194 of them. My weight is being spread out over all of them evenly. Each nail’s only holding up one 194th of my weight. But what would happen if I sat on just one nail?

Speaker: I heard someone say my bottom would go pop. You are exactly right. That would really hurt because all of my pushing force would be concentrated on just one place. So, the world’s most dangerous chair, it’s not being that dangerous at all, did it?

Ben Newsome: We even had the crew from Beards On, which is an interesting group that promotes conservation awareness through taking people’s beards off, literally.

Uh, either full beard or a half beard. And the reason why is that not only is it visible, it helps raise money to look after the environment. So, Beards On crew were there and we certainly enjoyed having them along. So, you can hear there was a lot happening at such a large festival such as the innovation games.

So, because of this, make sure you just jump on our blog for this particular episode and we’ll have a full list of all the links to the people who are involved. And uh, I know that it’s certainly worth your time. Just again, as I mentioned before, just listen through the grit, listen through the little bit of the audio back, you know, back chatter and all the bit of noise going on. That’s what’s going to happen in the major festival, but uh certainly we had some interesting people to talk to.

Ben Newsome: We’ve got the Little Bang Discovery Club festival edition happening. This is what we’re going to be doing here. Yeah, people are having a top time at the Innovation Games, let’s just make it happen.

Children’s Discovery Museum: We’ve got the Little Bang Discovery Club festival edition happening where the children can be scientists, where they can make their own collection out, they can do some measuring, and they can listen experimenting.

Ben Newsome: I love what Little Bang Discovery Club does. It’s aimed at three to five-year-old. You love it.

Children’s Discovery Museum: It is. But we also have experiments suitable for primary school children as well. I mean, who doesn’t love a tornado in a bottle? No one says it.

Ben Newsome: Oh, there’s magnifiers, there’s X-rays. Hey um you guys do a lot of stuff. We mainly do quick. You guys do a lot of work in community libraries. So we’re bringing science to the community in their local library.

Children’s Discovery Museum: We do. And um we do a lot of work in community libraries. So we’re taking science to the community in their local library.

Ben Newsome: Definitely. What with the Innovation Games, what made you guys go, you know what, we just got to be here and you get involved. We just thought, they need to be introduced to science to have a fun day.

Children’s Discovery Museum: They do. We just thought that they need to be introduced to science to have a fun day.

Ben Newsome: And who doesn’t love to be introduced to science in their fun day? We’re surrounded by kids doing stuff. They don’t care where on camera, they just want to play with the bubbles. Yeah, well, scientific toys are the best. I totally agree. Hey um I’m sure you talk to one and the Innovation Games definitely, you know, check out the yellow stand, or the yellow and orange stand at the Children’s Discovery Museum. A lot to see here, a lot to do, and certainly a lot to bring home with you to do in your local primary as well.

Ben Newsome: Back here at the Innovation Games. My name is Ben. And in this case we’re in the Ecohort tent. And uh look, it’s all going off. We got lots of stuff going on. And the uh, in this case, we’re talking about the science of sound when it comes to the bush. Hey, what’s going on here?

Ecohort: Here, we are trying to figure out which animal matches the sound. Do you want to just do this again? Press this one. Number six. Which do you reckon?

Ben Newsome: Can you hear it? Let’s listen.

Ecohort: Okay, which animal do you think it belongs to?

Ben Newsome: You can play it back at home here.

Ecohort: That’s right. That’s the sound of a sugar glider. And that’s one of the things that we’re doing today, we’re learning about science and how we can find animals in the bush. Because what about little micro bats? Do they make a sound we can hear, the little bats? They’re really tricky. We can’t actually hear them, but we can make a picture of their sound and their call. When the frequency’s so high. So we’re learning about the science of sound here in the tent, and figuring out the difficulty of trying to find little animals in the bush. Can you imagine trying to find a little black bat that’s endangered in, in the night in the bushland? It’s really, really tricky.

So, using a bat detector and using sound, um we can find them and we can help to manage the bushland and look after the bushland. So it’s really, really good.

Ben Newsome: Oh look, we got snakes coming out as well. Get check that out. Also, bubble wrap. Now we’re looking at snake skin or are we looking at something that is, yeah, a little bit more venomous? What are we looking at?

Ecohort: That’s a trick. You actually have to have a look at the belly. So, on the back, that’s the back of the snake. And on the belly, can you see what shape is the belly pattern? It’s got round circles. Round circles means it’s from a python. If it was stripey, it would be from a venomous snake. So, we’re pretty happy this is a friendly snake. In fact, this is from a children’s python.

Ben Newsome: Yeah, they didn’t. Did you like that, mate? What do you think snake food is?

Ecohort: It needs quite soft. It’s the same as our hair and our nails, it’s keratin. So, it’s, it’s, it’s, they shed their skin and um then we can at least know which snakes are around our houses and in the bushland.

Ben Newsome: Yes, welcome to the Innovation Games. I’m here at the hottest city as far as I’m concerned, the Sydney Olympic Park. And uh someone who really loves this place and works at this place all the time is Mike Bartley. I do love this place. Uh yeah, you got me there. Uh, it’s great to see everyone out here today, crowd beyond. We are finding out for science action. So uh wonderful to see you all. Thank you for staying, uh, well, I got next to me. Uh, Rob McTaggart, uh, talking around, uh, Rob, we created a virtual reality experience.

Rob McTaggart: Hi, Rob McTaggart. Uh, we’re helping out One Giant Leap and um we’ve created a virtual reality experience called the NRL game. Um, as well as being able to wander around on having a great time.

Ben Newsome: You’re flying around there. You’re holding out. Yeah. So, you’re looking around at all these places. What’s involved, Rob? Tell me, Rob. So, you can, it’s going to be a lot of fun. Tell me, Rob.

Rob McTaggart: Yeah, this is the NRL. What’s involved? It’s like going from around to the game to having a great time.

Ben Newsome: You’re flying around the Innovation Games. Tell me, Rob.

Rob McTaggart: You’re going from around to the game to having a great time.

Ben Newsome: So if you play this game with us, so you got to download game averse on your uh on your uh device, uh you can win grand final tickets. You can win a signed uh full on jersey. You can win you can win uh oh, a state of origin drill. So, I can see up in the sky here, you can win Albert Spencers. You can win Albert Spencers. That machine.

Ben Newsome: So, plenty of prizes to win. Golden tickets, kind of start, but you need to you need to play to win, essentially. So, if you need to know any more info, just ask someone walking around the place. Which one to read? Absolutely. When you’re out looking at people who are using, you’ll see them walking around with their phones, trying to find Kendra to play games all over the place. It’s really cool. I love augmented reality and um it’s probably well done by you guys to put this together.

Rob McTaggart: Well done by you guys to put this together. Absolutely.

Ben Newsome: And look, I hope you’re having a top time at the Sydney Olympic Park. The Innovation Games and Rob McTaggart, first event, first time. You can see Rob McTaggart, I’m sure you do. You can say hi to Rob McTaggart. Tell me about all these prizes, Rob, you can see all these stations and all the stuff in liquid nitrogen. Rob McTaggart is speaking down on the stage. There’s a lot going on and I hope you’re having a great afternoon.

Ben Newsome: Yes, I hope you’re having a fantastic time at the Innovation Games. How cool was Dr. Karl with his chat? You got to love him. Every time we do National Science Week, checking out Dr. Karl’s chats is just wicked. And uh speaking of checking things out, I really want to go to C. One Giant Leap. They’re down in the back, down here with the drones. And uh someone who’s certainly knows a lot about One Giant Leap is Emily here.

Emily: Hello, I’m Emily, and I’m the student ambassador for One Giant Leap Foundation. You should come down, have a look at what we have to offer. We have drone simulators, and you have anything and everything about information about space camp.

Ben Newsome: Now, you said student ambassador and you said space camp, which kind of makes it, I’ve got to know more about this. How did you land that gig?

Emily: Well, about a couple months ago, I wrote an email to One Giant Leap, and a month later I received news from Greg Chalton, astronaut, and I found out that I won the scholarship, so I’m going to America for space camp. It’s awesome.

Ben Newsome: Yeah, seriously, we’re talking like right in the heart. We’re talking about Zan there, yeah?

Emily: Huntsville, Alabama. Yeah.

Ben Newsome: Fantastic. What do you expect for us to see at Space Camp?

Emily: So, there we’re going to be doing lots of simulations, and we also get to experience being in multiple space camp.

Ben Newsome: Oh gosh, you know that there’s some kids who want to get involved in space camp. I’m sure they can speak with Emily. Definitely down at One Giant Leap. Hey, part of the speak with you, which by the way, is always interesting to find out what’s going on. What can they do down at One Giant Leap stand?

Emily: So, they can check out the drone simulators, and they can also talk to Rob and Jackie and the team down there. Also, CASA as well to learn more about drones, drone regulations, things like that. There’s a full table setup, and also space camp merchandise things like that.

This is the FizzicsEd Podcast. We’re all about science, Ed Tech and more. To see 100 fun free experiments you can do with your class, go to fizzicseducation.com.au. That’s Fizzics spelt F I Z Z I C S, and click 100 free experiments.

Ben Newsome: Well, there you go. That’s just a small excerpt of the very large festival that the Innovation Games was on August 20th of this year. And uh, look, if you want to find out more about how to set up your own festival, I really recommend you jumping back all the way to episode four, I believe, with Vanessa Barratt, who has set up a number of large festivals like this for Science in the Swamp and Science in the Wild through Australian Botanic Garden and Centennial Parklands. And I really recommend you check out that episode.

This is the FizzicsEd podcast. We’re excited about science. Grab a copy of our new book, Be Amazing: How to Teach Science the Way Primary Kids Love from our website. Just search Be Amazing book. It’s available in hard copy and ebook. Go to fizzicseducation.com.au. That’s Fizzics spelt F I Z Z I C S.

Ben Newsome: With Innovation Games, we’re really looking for people who could really show science in such a way that will grab people’s attention in an innovative way. We’re seeing virtual reality, we had augmented reality, we had electric cars and self-driving cars. We had drones and all sorts of stuff. And uh, it comes down to it that thinking creatively and putting together weird ideas in a new way is what innovation is often about. And uh, by the way, innovation doesn’t have to be groundbreaking. It doesn’t have to be about creating a brand new industry that someone makes a billion dollars from.

It can certainly be about simply just changing a little idea, pivoting a little bit, and uh, your classroom can benefit for that result. And uh, speaking of innovative places, I think you should probably check out last week’s episode with the Museum of Human Disease. I was speaking with my good friend Derek Williamson, and he had a lot to talk about when it came to telling people how they’re teaching biology, in particular human biology and anatomy and physiology in an innovative way.

Derek Williamson: So we’ve uh, just started a student project here 3D imaging specimens. It’s a small project at the moment. The idea will be that we will 3D image a bundle of our specimens and then we’re putting in a uh virtual reality studio in the back of the museum where we will then look at how we interpret these sorts of things and how we can bring other virtual reality in from across the university.

Derek Williamson: And kind of add to it with augmented reality within the museum space.

Ben Newsome: Yeah, it’s really worth checking out last week’s episode. Derek had a lot to say when it came to teaching biology, but I must say it’s one of the coolest museums that people haven’t actually often heard about.

Ben Newsome: The Museum of Human Disease is wicked. It’s well worth your time if you’re ever in Eastern Sydney. It’s well worth checking out.

Thanks for listening to the FizzicsEd Podcast. Love your science? We do too. Here’s this episode’s education tip of the week. Grab your pencil and get ready to make some notes.

Ben Newsome: Yes, this tip of the week is really for anyone who’s been looking for ways of teaching science using kids’ toys. Now, that should be fairly obvious for a lot of you, but I know that uh it’s kind of still not always done. People don’t often realise that you can find a lot of great apparatus, so to speak, in your local toy store.

The only thing is, is what is good and what’s not so good. So uh, you got to sort of, you know, ask yourself a few questions when you’re browsing around for your own classroom or for your own home. So here are the sort of questions I asked myself when it comes to stocking, well, what stuff we use for our own Fizzics Education programs. Seriously, that’s what we do. Or when I advise others say, hey, this particular toy is a value for people to consider for their own teaching.

So, straight up, first up, is it safe? Now, that should be straightforward, but unfortunately, you often find in those, you know, those cheaper stores, the $2 stores, not all those toys, even if it’s being sold under your area as, you know, somehow safe for import, doesn’t mean it’s appropriate for your classroom. So, think very carefully, can it get heated easily, like heat too much?

Ben Newsome: Is it likely to break in such a way that it will produce shards that are going to be a real problem for people’s skin? Yeah, you you obviously, yeah, so is it safe from a heating point of view, from an electrical point of view, is it easily broken? All that sort of thing is important before you even worry about the science. Next, is it going to cost you a fortune?

I mean, it’s so simple to go, you know, flick out, you know, 50 bucks, 100 bucks, 200 bucks, 500 bucks, and all of a sudden you’re out of money. You don’t want to do that. So, can you get a toy that’s, you know, under 20 bucks or even better, under $10, that you can replicate a few times so kids all get a genuine go at it in your classroom. And at least in your family, you know, you don’t want to be buying stuff that only lasts a week or two. So, is it cost-effective?

Now, importantly, does it demonstrate an area of science that you’re actually trying to teach? Now, that should be fairly obvious, but don’t let it hold you back if you’re not teaching something right now. I know I’ve been accused of being a bit of a bow bird, a bit of someone who just stores stuff away in case of a rainy day. But the number of times I’ve gone, you know what, I’ve got this thing that I I found three years ago, and I pull it out and it’s just great to have.

You know, it’s useful to store stuff away. Seriously, it’s totally worth it. So, does it demonstrate an area of science you’re going to teach now or potentially in the future? And finally, can students see and describe how the toy actually works from a scientific point of view? You know, how can they apply Newton’s laws? Can they see the conservation of energy being applied? Can they see how the circuits works and and how energy’s flowing around? Can they test that?

It’s really comes down to, rather than just looking for toys that might sell a particular character of the month that everyone wants to have on their uh on their toy, what does it show the kids? And so um, that’s my tips. That’s certainly uh I’d love to hear what your tips are when it comes to getting educational toys working in your classroom.

So, yeah, drop us a line, throw us some information onto iTunes or you whatever you’re using to to catch your podcast. I do certainly read them, or throw them down on our blog on our website. Uh, love to hear know what you think. Thanks for listening to the FizzicsEd Podcast. Sign up now for our fortnightly email newsletter. It’s loaded with details on new experiments you can do, STEM teaching articles, new gadgets, exclusive offers and upcoming events. Go to fizzicseducation.com.au. Scroll to the bottom and add your email.

Ben Newsome: And that brings us to the end of yet another FizzicsEd Podcast. Hey, thank you for hanging around, especially when it’s a little bit loud, a little bit quiet at times, a little bit gritty, a little bit noisy and everything in between at such a vibrant festival as the Innovation Games generally are. I know it was a little bit harder to hear through on some of those interviews, but it’s worth listening to some of these people, especially when their heart is in the right place when it comes to STEM education.

Hey, next week, we’re speaking with Jackie Slaviero and Emily Rosencke from One Giant Leap. That’s the crew that are bringing kids from Australia into Huntsville, Alabama for space camp, and I know you will enjoy that episode. And hey, until next time as always, may your science lessons be fun, please make them as informative as possible and grab your students’ imagination. You’ve been listening to me, Ben Newsome from Fizzics Education. And of course, you’ve been listening to the FizzicsEd Podcast. Bye for now.

You’ve been listening to another FizzicsEd podcast. We’re excited about science. Subscribe to us on iTunes to download the next episode as soon as it’s released. And don’t forget, for hundreds of ideas, free experiments, our new Be Amazing book and more, go to fizzicseducation.com.au.