Manchester Turns up the Heat!
Manchester FameLab set the standard very high for the first heat of NESTA FameLab on Saturday the 4th April. The Manchester Regional Winner was Lewis Dartnell a postdoc from University College of London. The two selected wildcards who will go into a second round with other wildcards from around the UK were Simon Choppin, a sports engineer researcher from Sheffield Hallam University and Andrew Russell, a Postdoctoral researcher from the University of Manchester.
There was a huge range of three minute presentations from frogs (including a live one!) to astrophysics and chaos theory. All were well explained presentations that left the judges and audience much more educated.
The contestants had a great day and really thought that the experience was well worth it:
• "It was good to get feedback from the judges as their comments were quite unexpected. This is probably because FameLab is quite different to any other public engagement activities I have undertaken before. I may try entering another regional heat to put the judges' feedback into practice and plan my talk accordingly."
• "Nice crowd! Staff casual and friendly! Judges helpful!"
• "Really useful. The judges were nice and made helpful comments for improvement. It's a friendly atmosphere as well so you're less nervous."
• "The most terrifying and exciting 3 minutes of my science career. Everyone should do it at least once!"