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The National Physical Laboratory are taking entries for their annual Water Rocket Challenge event, to be held on 25th June. Head on over to their website to sign up, and for a terrific guidebook on all things water rocket.

Also head to the main SciCast site for a film of last year’s competition, for an idea of what you’re letting yourself in for.

You might have noticed these creeping in over the last few days, but: they’re back! It’s a slightly different set of photos to before, so if you’re missing one you particularly wanted please drop us a line.

Good places to start are the Ceremony and Reception sets, or just dive in to the full album. As before, if you click through to individual photos you’ll find an ‘all sizes’ button that allows you to download large versions for printing.

We took the photos down, by the way, because we’d casually given everyone at the event a name badge. Since we’ve spent the last two years trying very hard to avoid publishing likeness, name and school for individual children, this wasn’t the brightest thing we’ve done. This new set of photos, then, has names painted out (some more neatly than others, I’m sorry to say), and next year the badges will be first names only.

Live and learn, eh?

We’ve posted loads — and we really do mean loads — of photos from last Friday’s awards to the SciCast Flickr account.

If you click through to the individual photos you’ll find an ‘All sizes’ button, which allows you to download a really gigantic version of each photo, suitable for printing.

We’ll work our way through and caption the photos as best we can, but you can help us by leaving comments. In particular, do let us know if we’ve labelled anything incorrectly, and we’ll get it sorted.

(These photos are all by Laura Mtungwazi, who worked her socks off and did a great job.)

[UPDATE Saturday 3/5/2008: we’ve taken the gallery down temporarily while we sort some details. The photos will be back as soon as we can manage.]

[UPDATE 2 Thursday 8/5/2008: The photos are back up again - see this post for details.]

The winners of the Planet SciCast Awards 2008 are as follows:

Best Film by an All-Adults Team
Combustion and Stoichiometry — Helston Science

Best Technical and Artistic Achievement
Refraction — Vibrant Films

Best Unpublishable Film
Bermuda Triangle — M & H Productions

Best Film by a Team which includes Primary School Students
Around the Universe in 2.5 Minutes — Marshions

Best Chemistry Film
Combustion and Stoichiometry — Helston Science

Best Biology Film
Grow Your Own Body Parts — Queen Mary

Best Engineering Film
Magnets and Rollercoasters — Team Go

The Institute of Physics’ Best SciCast Physics Film
Physics of Roundabouts — Dizzy

Best Entertainment Film
Refraction — Vibrant Films

Best Film, the Juror’s Grand Prize
Physics — Stronger Than The People Who Study It? — Starlink

Congratulations to all the winners, who walked away from the ceremony with £250 of Amazon vouchers, personal medals, and rather elegantly blocky team trophies. Apart from the overall winners, who got to pose gingerly with their trophy, which was held together with elastic bands. We’ll sort that out for them shortly.

Congratulations also to all the nominees for making it to the final stage. The jury’s voting was extremely close in every category, which is a testament to the terrific quality of the films submitted in this first year.

Huge thanks to everyone who came, both nominees and supporters. It was a magical event, and we’ve never seen hotdogs inhaled so quickly.

We’ll have photos and video from the event very soon, stay tuned… and remember: we’re already taking entries for SciCast 2008/9.

Here are the Nominations for the Planet SciCast Awards 2008:

Best Chemistry Film

• Combustion and Stoichiometry — Helston Science
• Can Liquids Flow Uphill? — The Latchkids
• Ionic Bonding — Waldegrave School
• Turboturds — Team Titch

Best Biology Film

• The Richmond Park Deer — BB Films
• Reebops — St Marys
• Grow Your Own Body Parts — Queen Mary
• Flu Animation — Eagle Eye 3

The Institute of Physics’ Best SciCast Physics Film
(all winners of the regional SciCast Physics Awards)

• Physics of Roundabouts — Dizzy
• Solids, Liquids, and Gases — Eagle Eye 2
• Under Pressure (II) — Carbon-12
• Electrostatic Charges — The Van de Graff Girls
• Vinegar Rockets — Simply Super Simple Science
• Central Locking — Joey’s TY Physics

Best Engineering Film

• Why Did The Millennium Bridge Wobble? — The Clown Fish
• Tinkerers and EMP Launcher — Tinkerers
• Magnets and Rollercoasters — Go
• Structural Engineering in Action — Helston Science

Best Entertainment Film

• Space Balloons — Eagle Eye 1
• Under Pressure (III) — Pupils Under Pressure
• Refraction — Vibrant Films
• Turboturds — Team Titch

Best Film by a Team which includes Primary School Students

• Around the Universe in 2.5 Minutes — Marshions
• Flu Animation — Eagle Eye 3
• Heartbeat — Badminton Young Scientists
• Breaking News — Eagle Eye 4

Best Film by an All-Adults Team

• Floating and Sinking — Declan Fleming
• Attack of the Enzymes — Demented Schoolgirl Productions
• Combustion and Stoichiometry — Helston Science
• Sticky Books — Back of An Envelope Productions

Best Technical and Artistic Achievement

• Tinkerers and EMP Launcher — Tinkerers
• Magnets and Rollercoasters — Go
• Aerofoils — Gideon Farrell
• Refraction — Vibrant Films

Best Unpublishable Film
(This is an additional category to recognise some of the terrific films which were entered, but unfortunately can’t be published. In some cases this is because the experiments portrayed look too dangerous to repeat, but usually it’s a result of the films using still photographs, video material, and particularly music that aren’t licensed for publication.)

• Methane Bubbles — The Boyz In Green
• How to Curl a Football — St Pauls Sports Science Team
• Bermuda Triangle — M & H Productions
• Electricity Through Glass — Coseley TV

Best Film, the Juror’s Grand Prize

• Richmond Park Deer — BB Films
• Turboturds — Team Titch
• Solids, Liquids, and Gases — Eagle Eye 2
• Refraction — Vibrant Films
• Physics — Stronger Than The People Who Study It? — Starlink

Notes

Nominees will receive certificates, together with invitations to the glittering Awards Ceremony, details of which will be announced shortly. Category winners will be announced at the Ceremony: winning teams will receive individual medals and a coveted ‘SciCastie’ block award, along with Amazon vouchers worth £250.

Congratulations and good luck to all the nominees, and our thanks to everyone who submitted a film.

Meanwhile… it’s time to start planning your entry for next year’s Awards!

Yes, we’ve been quiet — but we’ve also been busy!

Friday’s Planet Science Newsletter should contain details of the Nominations lists for the inaugural SciCast Awards. I don’t know about you lot, but the tension is certainly building here.

Yesterday we hit something of a modest milestone — the first time we’ve managed to add a dozen new films in a day, thus refreshing the entire front page of the site. These are all competition entries, too.

Regional judging for the physics category is underway via the Institute of Physics branches; that’ll take a short while to coordinate, and then we’ll compile the shortlists for all the categories. Now be warned — we might hold off on announcing the shortlists until we have firm plans for the Awards Ceremony, so don’t hold your breath. Well, you can hold your breath if you like, but make sure somebody’s filming you — we want to see if you really do turn blue.

We’re talking about some absolutely amazing possible venues for the Ceremony. OK, we can’t quite afford them, but we’re talking about them anyway. Expect glamour. Expect glitz. Expect… well, maybe not many celebrities, but you never know, right?

If you’ve sent us a film and wonder what’s happened to it, you might have realised that the SciCast site’s been a bit wobbly of late. Here’s what’s happening:

• We’ve been having problems with the main web server, which are gradually getting fixed.
• Accordingly, we’re running judging separately from the main site. This means that if you’ve sent us a film, it’s entered into the competition and being judged. Don’t worry if you haven’t seen it on the main site yet, the judges can see it elsewhere.
• We’ll get all the films on the main site as soon as we can, shortly followed by an indication of the shortlisted entries.

Note, however, that some of you we’ve tried to contact about copyright queries with your films, and have had no response. Please please keep checking the email address you sent us when you submitted your film.

The webserver which runs the main SciCast site is having a hard time keeping up with us all, I’m afraid — if it’s not responding to you, please try again later. Our web partners, the Engineering & Technology Board, are working frantically to get everything sorted.

Thanks, and sorry!