Last weekend, we had our first public ASTEROID event in the Centre for Life. Together with Will Herbert, a project student from our lab, I organized a “Meet the Scientist” event and we let the children have some fun 3D experiences. Will collected data for his experiment with a big 3D television. The children were quite enthusiastic about taking part in a real science experiment and even competed against each other to detect the 3D shapes! For ASTEROID, I brought pictures of different game themes and asked children to pick their favourite one. I had tried to be creative myself and had drawn little boys and girls that the children could colour in and pin to the picture they liked the best. I also brought star stickers for the kids to stick onto their favourite pictures, these were also very popular J. About 50 children voted and we will now continue working with the top 3 themes. It was great to see how intrigued and curious children can be. The older children enjoyed the visual illusions and were astonished by the effect of a 3D Einstein face illusion. Parents remembered their own childhood when playing with the old 3D ViewMaster. The enthusiasm and spontaneity of the children and parents was infectious and I had a great time!
Author: Kathleen Vancleef