Friday 30 January 2009

SciBAr

A nice article on the newish Didsbury SciBAr here.

Tuesday 20 January 2009

Twitter tweeting

Jon Copley is a marine biologist and is currently on a research ship in the Southern Ocean, just off Antaractica, exploring the deep seabed to find hydrothermal vents and cold seeps--deep, chemical oases that are home to a variety of bizarre creatures.

Jon is posting regular “tweets” on Twitter every few minutes (when possible) about the expedition’s progress - the idea being to give people an insight into the process of how science is done, give them the opportunity to interact with scientists in more of a ’real-time’ setting, and hopefully share the thrill of discovery when they find something new.

You can do follow his posts at: http://twitter.com/expeditionlog

UK Schools Computer Animation Competition 2009 - now open!

Now open! The UK Schools Computer Animation Competition 2009

The competition is open to all UK schoolchildren aged between 7 and 19. The deadline for entering is Friday 1 May 2009. For full details, and to register your school's interest, please visit the Animation09 website. Register now, with no obligation, and keep in the picture!

About the competition

The School of Computer Science at The University of Manchester is running the second annual UK Schools Computer Animation Competition, in association with Electronic Arts and the Manchester Museum of Science and Industry.

For the 2009 competition, entrants can create their animations (maximum duration: 1 minute) using any of the following programs: Alice, Scratch, or Flash. There are some great prizes, and the Animation Festival and Awards Ceremony will be held at the Manchester Museum of Science and Industry.

The inaugural 2008 competition attracted over 230 entries from 55 schools, with over 400 children attending the Film Show and Awards Ceremony day at The University of Manchester. Visit the 2008 Winners Gallery.

Key dates
19 January 2009: Competition launch, and the website opens for registration.
1 May 2009: Deadline for submitting entries.
22 May 2009: Shortlisted winners notified.
26 June 2009: Film Show and Awards Ceremony day at the Manchester Museum of Science and Industry.

Key contacts
Animation09 website
Enquiries: Animation09@cs.man.ac.uk

Tuesday 6 January 2009

Happy 2009!

Happy new year!

So we can confirm the rumours are true - the festival will be back in 2009 and the dates are likely to be 24 October until 1 November.

And whilst you're waiting for that date to roll around, of course we'll be back blogging on here, as well as updating the main site with developments.

For now, you can entertain yourself with the video of the 2008 highlights that has just gone up on the site. Spot yourself or be inspired in time for this year...