Don’t worry, I haven’t forgotten you. I’m about to head to North Wales to see a 101 year-old, then mid Wales to see my nieces and nephew at a random campsite somewhere. I’ll be back towards the end of next week, at which point I’ll resume posting films. There are lots to get through, and you’ll love them. Really, you will.
In the meantime, somebody from Norway sent us a very interesting email, which was promptly eaten by a mail server move. If you happen to see this, could you get in touch again, please? jonathan[at]planet-scicast.org.uk.
Photos are up!
Last night I posted a few hundred photos from last Friday’s Awards event to our Flickr account. So far the formal team portraits are up (not that many of them are particularly ‘formal’ as such — it looks like photographer Laura Mtungwazi is as mad as you lot). I’ve also sorted through stills from the event and reception, so you’ll find lots of photos of people eating cake and messing about with balloons, and of me looking nervous from earlier in the day.
Still to come are pictures from the ceremony itself, which I’ll sort through as soon as I can. I’ll also get cracking on tagging and titling and all that jazz.
Meanwhile, if you’ve any photos yourself that you’d like others to see, and you’re a Flickr user, tag them with ‘scicast’ and we’ll invite them to the group pool. Or just add them to the pool yourself. Thanks!
I’m off to a conference for a few days, but over the weekend I’ll try to match up people and films, so you’ll see little thumbnails like those below appear over on the main site.
The winners of the Planet SciCast Awards 2010, as announced at the Awards Ceremony at the Royal Institution on Friday 16th March, were:
Flipside Most Entertaining Film 2010
- Rockets!, by The Neutrons
Best Earth Science and Environment Film 2010
- Gettin Down Wiv Global Warming!, by Radical Rappers
Best Chemistry Film 2010
- The Squeaky Pop Test, by Parkside Federation Pictures
Award for Technical & Artistic Achievement 2010
- Gravity, Mass and Weight, by Oliver Madgwick
EngineeringUK Best Engineering Film 2010
- Surviving in Space, by It’s Space Time
Gratnells’ Best Film from a Science Technician 2010
- Building an Igloo, by Chris Bell
Institute of Physics Best SciCast Physics (Primary) 2010
- The Last Straw, by The Extrawdinary Experimenters
Institute of Physics Best SciCast Physics (11-15) 2010
- The Doppler Effect, by Simple Science Productions
Institute of Physics Best SciCast Physics (16+) 2010
- The Leidenfrost Effect, by The HotBuds
Best Biology Film 2010 (Primary)
- Seed Dispersal, by Class 5T Brecknock Primary School
Best Biology Film 2010 (Secondary)
- Animated Rat Dissection, by By Wrights
Judges’ Awards
Ignition* Best Film from the East Midlands
- How Hot Air Balloons Fly, by FALB
Future Morph Best Careers Film
- Where STEM Can Take You, by Genevieve Hinde
Judges’ Special Awards
- Sonoluminescence, by It’s Physics Time
- Spooky Siphoning, by Supertastic Scientists
Best Film 2010
- Gravity, Mass and Weight, by Oliver Madgwick
We’ve whittled. We’ve sifted. We’ve fallen out. We’ve made friends again. We’ve — finally — agreed on the nominations for this year’s SciCast Awards.
It’s been an epic battle. Not only have there been as many films this year as there were in both previous years put together, but the average standard has clearly gone up. Well up. It’s been unbelievably difficult to sort out a final set of categories and nominations, but here, at last, they are:
Institute of Physics Best SciCast Physics (Primary) 2010
- The Electric Lemon, by The Electricians
- What’s the Matter at St. Johns, by Year 4’s Weird Science
- The Fortugue Smythes and the Plastic Bag Kebab, by Year 5’s Weird Science
- The Last Straw, by The Extrawdinary Experimenters
Institute of Physics Best SciCast Physics (11-15) 2010
- The Doppler Effect, by Simple Science Productions
- The LeGO mAN spectrum, by Lydia and Heather
- Dark Matter — Cookie Monster Style!, by The Cookie Monsters
- Jack and Jenny’s Space Adventure, by Shuper Sheep
- The Eggsperimenters, by The Eggybreads
Institute of Physics Best SciCast Physics (16+) 2010
- Physics Tonight: Momentum, by Revolutionary Reporters
- Noise-Reducing Headphones, by Bede Bad Boys
- Why Do Cats Always Land On Their Feet?, by nomomentum
- The Leidenfrost Effect, by The HotBuds
- Conservation of Energy, by SAS Stop Motion
EngineeringUK Best Engineering Film 2010
- Let’s Talk Winglets, by The Falangists
- Surviving in Space, by It’s Space Time
- Sunny Side Up Pizza, by The Grays Media and Arts College
Gratnells’ Best Film from a Science Technician 2010
- Building an Igloo, by Chris Bell
- Diffusion Cloud Chamber, by Hobbs Girls
Best Chemistry Film 2010
- The Squeaky Pop Test, by Parkside Federation Pictures
- How do Fireworks have colour?, by Chemkings
- Crystals, by Team NEF
- Electrolysis, by BHBS Class 11Ho
- Exothermic and Endothermic Reactions, by Hannah
Best Biology Film 2010 (Primary)
- Seed Dispersal, by Class 5T Brecknock Primary School
- The Big Chew, by The Chompers
- Terrible Teeth, by Year 4
- Field of Vision, by The Fiery 4
Best Biology Film 2010 (Secondary)
- Animated Rat Dissection, by By Wrights
- A Punctured Lung, by Isaac and Daniel
- Photo-tropism-thing-a-ma-jig, by Green Hippos
- What really happens inside, by Team Whits
Best Earth Science and Environment Film 2010
- Rock Pools, by rock pools
- Thor God of Thunder, by Thunder and Lightning
- Gettin Down Wiv Global Warming!, by Radical Rappers
Flipside Most Entertaining Film 2010
- The Science Inspectors, by The Sidcot Science Inspectors
- The Marshmallow Man, by Boom
- Rockets!, by The Neutrons
- The Adventures of Carrot and Friends, by Atomic Productions
- Custard Woohoo!!, by The Crazy Chefs
- FABLAB Chickens: I’m a Worm Get Me Out Of Here! by FABLAB Sam, Ronnie, Jessica
Award for Technical & Artistic Achievement 2010
- Whose Twin?, by Vibrant Films
- Fluorescence, by Exeter School Fluorescence
- Gravity, Mass and Weight, by Oliver Madgwick
- Standing Waves, by Tom, Byrne, Amal
Judges’ Special Awards 2010
The judges wished to recognise a range of films that met the standard expected of nominees, but didn’t sit within the existing categories. A number of trophies selected from the following nominations will be presented at the Ceremony.
- Fire Balls, by Alan and Joe
- Sonoluminescence, by It’s Physics Time
- The Genetic Malfunction of Down Syndrome, by Down Syndrome
- Spooky Siphoning, by Supertastic Scientists
- Brineshrimp — Our distant cousins?, by Real Science
- Groovy Gravity, by Science Stars
- Diamonds Are A Girls Best Friend, by Diamond Girls
- Balloonium Experimento, by ReverseInertia?
- Where STEM Can Take You, by Genevieve Hinde
- How Hot Air Balloons Fly, by FALB
- Smashing Bananas, by The Smashing Bananas
SciCast Best Film 2010
The nominees for the overall Best Film award will be drawn from the winners of the categories above, and hence will be announced during the ceremony.
What happens now?
Nominees will shortly — probably before they see this — receive an emailed invitation to our glittering Awards Ceremony, which will take place at the Royal Institution in London on Friday July 16th. If your film is listed above, and you don’t hear from us, drop us a line to theteam@planet-scicast.org.uk.
We’ll get all the films on the main SciCast website just as quickly as we can, and we’ll link through to them from here once they’re in place.
Huge congratulations to all the nominees; we look forward to meeting you at the Awards.
Our sincere thanks also to everyone else who took part, not just for your efforts but also for making the competition so tough this year. We hope you’ll agree that the nominees have earned their places, but standing out this year was extremely hard, with many of the categories very closely-contested. That couldn’t have happened without your efforts, raising both the range and standard of submissions.
Think it’s been quiet over in SciCast-ville? Not so! We may have been all serene on the surface, but behind the scenes we’ve been trashing our way frantically through more films than ever before. More films, and later, too — you lot don’t half like leaving it until the last minute, huh?
However, our labours are starting to bear fruit. Judging for the Awards is underway, and over on the main site you’ll see… dun-dun-durrrrr!
New films!
Oh yes indeed, a little flurry of them. Stay tuned for more through the week. Actually, there are enough that they’ll burst through this week and into the month beyond.
The submission deadline for SciCast 2010 is: TOMORROW!
Wait — for many schools that’s right at the end of the Easter holidays, and hence about the worst possible date we could have picked. Can we be serious? Well, no, not really.
We checked and re-checked when picking the date, double-checked and checked again, and still Easter has ended up leaping out of nowhere and ambushing us. Sorry about that. However, we’ve always been a little… flexible about our deadlines.
If you want to enter but can’t quite do it in time, go to the submission page and start the process, then upload your film and post us the paperwork as soon as you can.
So long as everything arrives next week you should be fine — the week after may be pushing things too far, but if there are particular circumstances you can’t avoid then drop us a line and we’ll do our very best to accommodate you.
Just a quick notice: comments are working again at the main SciCast site. Sorry about the extended problems.
Regular readers will know I’m a bit of a fan of the Kodak Zi8 stick camera — similar to the ubiquitous Flip range, but arguably better quality, a close-up focus mode that’s surprisingly effective, and featuring the all-important jack for a decent microphone. For my money it’s as good as anything several times its price.
If it has an achilles heel, however, it’s shot steadiness. Although the camera does apply a smidge of anti-shake processing, it’s simply impossible to hold the thing without jostling it slightly, as if your heartbeat is making the camera tremble. It helps if you try to imagine you’re holding a priceless vase filled to the brim with water, but the Zi8 is still a bit too light.
Attaching an accessory grip does help a little. However, what I really want to try is one of a new breed of ultra-light (and relatively cheap) Steadicam alternatives. Steadicam themselves make an astonishing bit of kit called the Merlin, but it’s far too costly for our pockets. However, there are a couple of similar products available for around £80, which might just solve the Zi8’s greatest weaknesses.
The things I want to try are the Manfrotto 585 Modosteady, or the Hague Mini Motion-Cam. Most reviews of the former are pretty poor, but expectations may have been too high; the latter may be more effective, but by the time it’s balanced for a very light camera it may be more expensive than the Modosteady.
Neither of these is going to be a patch on the Steadicam Merlin. But if they make a £200 package that rivals £400 camcorders for smoothness, they might just be worthwhile.
We’re aware of problems with comments on the films — you can submit comments, but they’re not showing up in the moderation system, so we’ve no way of making them visible. It’s possible that comments are simply getting lost.
Our colleagues at EngineeringUK are aware of the issue, and are working to solve it. In the meantime, our apologies.
[update Wednesday 3rd March: sorry, no change to the site so far, and we don’t have an estimated fix date. We’ll keep you posted.]
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SciCast Awards 2010 - Winners
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