Centre for Life, Newcastle, Public engagement, Summer placement, Workshop

Nikki’s Summer Placement

21 August, 2015 nastero Leave a comment

On June 21^st I began a new venture, working at the Institute of Neuroscience helping the ASTEROID research team. My first day nerves were quickly tamed by Jenny, the Principal Investigator/ project research leader, who immediately offered me a coffee and sat me down for a chat. As a well-known researcher, getting to work for her was a blessing in itself (made better still by the weekly Friday morning grub she brought to the lab meetings which was always quickly demolished J).

Outlining ASTEROID to me, you could see how exciting the project was to her and the team. As the weeks went on, I also got increasingly excited about the project as I got more involved and watched developments taking place to reach the target- releasing a 3D glasses free Stereotest to be used in clinical settings.

The two main colleagues I had contact with were Adam and Kathleen. Both were friendly and welcomed me straight away. Kathleen is the Research Associate on ASTEROID whilst Adam was the Administrative Support. I remember two main things from my first day. Firstly, the faff I got myself into with the laminating machine- I never fully appreciated the difficulty of firstly printing onto A3 and then laminating…this was my first ever task and I think it must have taken me about 2 hours to complete, which would’ve taken a sane person 10 minutes. My time was improved slightly with the constant input of Adam who is always willing to give people a hand. Secondly the huge amount of psychophysics reports I had to read- which I still haven’t completed six weeks on due to the complicity of them! At the time it felt like I was thrown in at the deep end. However, looking back, the tasks given to me gave me a chance to get to grips with the project before helping with PPI and data collection.

Throughout the weeks Spent at ION I met many different researchers (mainly by constantly swapping desks and getting new desk partners!). Hearing about the range of experiments they were conducting is amazing! The variety of backgrounds the researchers have is also intriguing- they had ecologists, engineers, psychologists, chemists, physicists… the list goes on! The first research I took part in was for a researcher called Zoltan- a whacky engineer studying vision using EEG. Although the brain readings were complicated to understand, it was still an experience and the accumulation of chocolate and vouchers I gathered from continuously doing his study was a bonus! People who are scared of EEG; don’t be! You can’t feel a thing.

I only attended one meeting solely for ASTEROID; every month different team members such as clinicians, illustrators, game designers and researchers all gather together for a Project Management Meeting. Topics of discussion include: the impact ASTEROID is having, how to improve the game design and the next steps needed. As a newbie, I kept my mouth shut and watched. Listening to the ideas bounce back and forth between different experts in their fields and explore all options and future possibilities was mentally draining. The enthusiasm everyone had in ASTEROID was evident and seeing the group dynamics was fascinating.

Other people I got to know included: Will, a Psychology graduate from Newcastle who had worked for Jenny before; and Maeve, a sixth form student getting some work experience. When collecting data at the Centre for Life, the experience was definitely made a lot more interesting working with other people and joking around a little (mainly Will and I). We also filmed scenes explaining fluid pixel and the general research happening in the lab to create a few short videos. It’s safe to say I won’t be becoming a camerawoman any time soon but it was still amusing, a fun task and a chance to see more research in action. Both students were great personalities that made my experience brighter.

Going out into the public and watching children play on ASTEROID is definitely the highlight of my experience. The ‘bounce’ session in Sunderland especially stands out to me, when children with eye impairments met and played the game. Meeting individuals that ASTEROID could potentially help let me see the rewards of the project in a much clearer light. ASTEROID is for such a good cause and without the team of dedicated researchers this project wouldn’t be possible…I can only wish them the best of luck for the future and hope to return to the Institute at some point!

Centre for Life, Meet the Scientist, Newcastle, Public

‘Game On’ at Centre for Life, July

11 August, 2015 nastero Leave a comment

Last week Will, Maeve and I showed our research at the Centre for Life’s “Game On 2.0” exhibition. Two tests were being run, firstly, comparing the ASTEROID test to current tests: Frisby, Randot and TNO. Secondly, measuring the average person’s depth perception on psychophysics equipment Ignacio had set up. To run all the equipment we had quickly learnt beforehand how to use the stereotests, record data and power up Ignacio’s experiment.

As the Centre currently has the “Game On 2.0” exhibition on, we were bang in the middle of 60 years’ worth of games, all emitting different sounds. Although exciting at first, these snippets of Mario Cart and Clash of the Titans began to grate on us by the end of the week! We were constantly on our feet testing the many children that circled to the table to get their eyes tested. All the children seemed to enjoy ASTEROID and the parents were willing for us to take down data for both experiments. We received lots of feedback, got a large sample of data and are excited to see what the stats will show! Altogether a lovely week interacting with the public 🙂

Nikki

We went to the Centre for Life and had a stand in the Game On exhibition so that we could get children to participate in our research. We managed to get lots of children of a range of ages to take part, which was great and really helpful. We had two separate tests going on; a test of ASTEROID compared to other, currently used stereotests; and a psychophysics test to get an idea of the average population’s stereovision.

Sometimes it was really quiet and you could just hear the sound of computer game characters dying and shooting one another on the many screens in the exhibition, and at other times we were rushing around to cope with the numbers of people crowding around our stand. We found that as soon as you had one person doing the experiment, other people were curious and wanted a go too, so we tried the tests ourselves in the quieter moments. I’d never done any of them before, only being new to the project, so I quickly realised why the children were finding some of the tests difficult, by struggling at them myself. The children found the tests a range of difficulties- due to not understanding our instructions or by being nearly stereoblind. I was only there for two days but in that time we gathered lots of data and I found out more about the project.

Maeve

Newcastle, Public engagement, Uncategorized

Bright Ideas in Health Awards 2015

16 July, 2015 nastero Leave a comment

Bright ideas event video (Adam)

So, we applied for an NHS Bright Ideas in Health Awards 2015 nomination for Patient and Public Involvement a couple of weeks ago. We’ve made it through to the finals – WOW, fantastic! We’ve only been working on the project for about 6 months and we are in the running for a prestigious award – go team 🙂 The delivering body, NHS Innovations North, ask if they can film one of us explaining, in brief, the overview of the project to display at the start of the awards ceremony. I’m sure Kathleen or Jenny will want to take the reins on this as they do the academia/science. Ah, wait, Kathleen’s out of the country… and so is Jenny… so that leaves… me?

EXCITING! Adam’s moment of glory! “No pressure Adam, but, if you screw it up we might not win the award and everyone will know about it and hate you” a small, imaginary voice warns. Good old brain shows his worth sometimes, this guidance is not worth ignoring. Taking brain’s advice, I read over some project information to refresh and to make sure I’ve got my story straight (and in the right direction). That wasn’t so bad, I knew more about the project than I thought – jolly good (note to self: trust yourself more). So where is this filming taking place? I get in touch with our contact, Rebecca, to book a time and to find out where they need me. Newcastle would seem obvious, or Sunderland perhaps? Nope. Prudhoe. No, really. They have a place called “Fuse Media Centre” which has facilities to film me, even if Google Maps’ street view disagrees.

Well, even if someone is having a laugh at my expense, it’s a nice sunny day to be walking up one of the many hills in Prudhoe. Ah-ha! Prudhoe DOES have filming facilities. Fuse Media Centre is real and looks pretty impressive (take that, Google Maps’ street view). I walk through the big, glass doors to find: no one at reception. I knew it, we have been lied to. No, wait, there’s a human over there – ask them if this is the correct place. It is! And he is taking me to where I will be filmed. I’m early (or the people already in there are having too much fun to let me in). No worries, I’ll hang around with Rebecca, who is also real, and has kindly provided coffee and conversation while I wait.

Fuse Media Centre, Prudhoe © Copyright Andrew Curtis and licensed for reuse under this Creative Commons Licence.

I admit, I’m feeling a wee bit nervous now; or is that the coffee kicking in? Well, whatever it is, embrace and go with it – the energy will come out great on screen (hopefully). Be brave. The door opens, I’m greeted by a couple of firm handshakes, and now I’m standing in front of a “green screen”. They say it’s so they can put something fun on the background afterwards when they edit the film. I ask if I can have dinosaurs fighting or some explosions behind me. No. No dinosaurs, no explosions. They humour me all the same and help me relax into talking about the project. “Don’t look at the camera” they say. But it’s a really cool camera. I just about resist the temptation (just) whilst explaining the wonders of ASTEROID. 15 minutes later they say they have all the info they need from me. They reassure me that this means I’m good at this filming malarkey. Ah, that wasn’t so bad! Now we wait until the award ceremony next week to see what I look like blown up on a 50ft screen.

After a sneeze, a cough, and a few people telling me to go home, later, I have a bad case of “man-flu” (which I still have remnants of 1 month on) just in time for the award ceremony. Fantastic 🙁 I can’t go as I’m on my deathbed.

“How did I come across?”, “Did the camera like me?”, “Did they put dinosaurs behind me?” are the questions haunting me to this day. Jenny, Kathleen, you were there, right?

Bright Ideas event (Kathleen)

Because we are only 6 months into the project, I thought it might be a bit early to enter a Patient and Public Involvement competition, but why not give it a try. And, it was worth it! Only a few weeks later, I received the email saying we were selected as finalists and were invited to the award ceremony. It felt very rewarding putting that event in my diary :). Suddenly, we had to decide on which collaborators to list in the booklet (there are so many great people who helped us and only limited space, hard decisions!), make a team photo, write a short bio and get ourselves interviewed by a film company. The best part was sending around invitations to the other team members :). Soon we had a list of attendees and ended up with table 36 as the ASTEROID table.

Because it was my first award ceremony, I wasn’t sure what to expect. As a girl, what to wear was one of my concerns during the days before. As researcher, I decided to perform a small experiment (n=4) asking colleagues to vote independently. We concluded my pink dress was the one to be. As a proper Belgian, I cycled to the venue in this fancy dress (my bike was the only one outside the building). On the evening, we were welcomed with a drink at the Hilton Hotel in Gateshead before we were invited to find our place in the dining hall. Table 36 was waiting for us! However, our group wasn’t complete yet. Jenny only just made it! She came back from a conference in the US and after a 24h journey and a short stop at home, came straight to the award ceremony. That’s commitment! Gareth got lost on the confusing way from the metro station to the hotel, but he made it before dinner was served 🙂 Adam, meanwhile, was sneezing and coughing in bed at home :(.

So, Jenny, Kristy, Stuart, Gareth, Mike, Kathryn, Caroline and I were there to approve (or judge) Adam’s moments of fame on the screen. We had to wait until after dinner before we could get a glimpse of that. Meanwhile we were entertained by some presentations and speeches about why we need bright ideas in the NHS.

Along the side, they ran a small competition to raise money for Action Duchenne. Our host, Kim Inglis, invited us to a head-or-tails game. We were asked to stand up and either put our hands on our head or on our bottom, she would flip a coin and the coin would decide which half of the audience would lose the round and had to sit down. After a few rounds, about 10 people were still participating. Apparently, I was a lucky guesser and made it to the last 10. Unfortunately, that meant we had to go on stage! Was this a practice run? So, I was standing with my hand on my head and my bottom on stage. That wasn’t what I had expected from an award ceremony! Sadly, in the last round I made the wrong decision and the bottle of champagne went to someone else.

Following the lovely dinner, we finally arrived at the presentation of the awards. For every category, the four finalists were introduced by a short film that was recorded earlier in Prudhoe. We had to wait a while, because PPI was only the last of six categories. But, there he was, Adam on the big screen. He did a great job. No dinosaurs, no explosion, but blowballs were twirling around behind him. He accurately explained the project with a personal touch. Other finalists that appeared on the screen were the Mental health service user led research, Durham constipation service and an Online course about falls in older people. The Durham Constipation Service already won the Innovations in Research Delivery half an hour before, so we knew they would be competitive, but a 2^nd place would already be beyond our expectations, so fingers crossed! After a few nerve breaking moments, they announced the 2^nd place. Was that really my name, our project, which they just said?! Looking at Jenny’s face, she heard the same thing! Oh no, I have to go on stage! (Luckily I have had my practice run before). So, is the team joining me? Please, come with me, I didn’t do this by myself; I could only have done it with your support. But no, they were as freighted to go on stage as I was. So, I found myself walking to the front all by myself. Three steps to get up on stage and then just shake hands and smile to the photographer J Only back in my chair, I fully realized we have won an award! An actual shiny award! And a framed certificate J Oh, and some money would follow later, but I did not really think about it at that moment. I’ve been working on this project for just 6 months and they gave me an award, I could not believe it (still can’t). Soon after, the ceremony ended and we took some time to take a few group photos. That night I fell asleep with a big smile on my face and the award and the certificate prominently placed on my desk (although, a few weeks later they had to move to a shelf to free up space for my new desk plant).

Newcastle, Public engagement, Seven Stories

Big Ideas Event at Seven Stories (31/3/2015)

7 May, 2015 nastero Leave a comment

Wow, that was a really inspiring day! I was blown away by these children.

3 months we have prepared for this. Almost every Monday evening we gathered together in the Story Lab at Seven Stories. So many times that I have climbed the stairs to the sixth flour wondering what this evening might bring. Every time it was different: browsing books, talking to a cartoonist, getting inspired by each other’s stories, doing some drama exercises, counting “1, 2, kwak!” but every time some magic happened. I wasn’t always aware at that very moment, but when going home I experienced my mind set had changed in the past hours and my brain came up with the most original ideas on the train home. I did not know I could be so creative. It was inspiring to spend those evenings with artists and researchers studying subjects like soil, literature, statistics or photosynthesis. If you bring people from very diverse backgrounds together in a room where every idea is welcomed, that’s when the unexpected happens. Also, I could have never believed children’s books have so many big ideas. There is so much more to them than, say, a story about a fish stealing a hat, or a boy finding a treasure box! I vividly remember our introduction session. I was not sure how children’s fictional stories could in any means be helpful in explaining neuroscience research. But then Debbie Beeks from Seven Stories started to read “The Conquerors” by David McKee . The book tells the story of a general that conquers a village. After some time of occupation, with his soldiers living in the village, the soldiers become friends with the villagers. They got to know each other and now laugh and drink together, and enjoy themselves in games. The general doesn’t like all this sociability towards the villagers and sends his soldiers home. He brings in a new army to regain order. At the end of the book the general goes home and when his daughter asks him at bedtime to sing a song, the only song the general can think of is a local song from the village. The way Debbie read that story brought me back to my childhood and I was listening as intrigued as a 5-year old. Once she finished and told us that a researcher used this book to explain how cancer cells invade the body and merge with our healthy cells, I was amazed by the Big Idea that was hidden in this book. In the weeks that followed on the first meeting, I discovered more hidden layers in children’s book. One book can tell so many different stories! It just depends on the way you look at it. In the beginning I wasn’t sure that there would be a children’s book that would fit my research; I ended up with two books to explain my research (and I could easily have found more!) Research7S_Damien_Wootten-7

On Tuesday March 31^st, all this work and creativity came together. The evening before, we gathered for one last time to set up the room and run through our presentations. You could feel some nervousness hanging in the attic of the building, although probably excitement or curiosity would be as suitable descriptions of the atmosphere. Together with my fellow neuroscientists, we made a cosy corner on the carpet surrounded by Big Ideas books and left it to the darkness of the night and the stuffed animals. I wouldn’t have been surprised if the animals had come to life to play with the characters in the books that night or to explore our research objects… But the next morning, everything looked the same! After a short briefing, we took our positions in the room to welcome the children and tried to control our nerves by firmly holding our cups of tea or coffee. When the first school arrived you could feel the slight uneasiness in the room. The children looked around the strange place, not sure how to behave; and the researchers, were altogether away from the children (also not sure how to approach the 10-year olds). However, a few minutes later we were searching for the hidden animals together – and I learned from them what a Kingfisher is! Shortly after Debbie’s welcome we(the neuroscientists) organised our small group of children on the carpet. Although initially, they were a bit shy, after a few games they were difficult to stop from asking questions and relating our research to their personal experiences.

Research7S_Damien_Wootten-43

I think we really succeeded in creating an open friendly environment where all questions could be asked and all ideas were welcomed. I had started my session with ‘The Viewer’ by Shaun Tan that tells the story of Tristan, a boy who is very curious from birth and is obsessed with inquisitive artefacts. One day, he is searching the city dump for more interesting objects and finds a strange box filled with bizarre optical devices, including a 3D viewer. At this point in the story, I showed the children my box of optical devices and asked them to be like Tristan and explore my objects to find out what my research was about. They very much enjoyed exploring my suitcase. It contained a brain model, my notebook, a graph, red-green 3Dglasses, a 3D viewer, photos of children with amblyopia or strabismus, a photo of a mantis wearing 3D glasses, tablets, and random dot stereograms. It was amazing how quickly they understood my research was about 3D vision and the brain. Afterwards, we did a little experiment showing how both eyes are needed to work together for seeing 3D. By looking at some pages of the book “Who’s hiding?” by Satoru Onishi, the children realised our brain is also necessary for interpreting what we see. This provided a good introduction to explain amblyopia and strabismus, visual conditions related to brain and eye disorders respectively. You can imagine their excitement when I then showed them the 3D tablet game we are making to help treatment of these visual conditions! The questions and discussions that followed amazed me. Children can really think outside the box! They asked me questions I have never been asked before. During the lunch break some of them came back to have another play on the game. They were really engaged, and suddenly we were involved in a discussion about potential game improvements. Some new Big Ideas were born! Mind-blowing, it was my highlight of the day. The afternoon was as entertaining and stimulating as the morning session. Besides the researchers and children, other creative minds were present on that day.

me and my suitcase cartoon Research7S_Damien_Wootten-42

We had Nigel Auchterlounie documenting the day in cartoons and a film crew was capturing children’s views on our research project. I was surprised how eager the children were to be interviewed in front of the camera (I wasn’t that enthusiastic when it was my turn later on!). I’m looking forward to seeing the results of all this filming. So curious to hear how the children explained my research project. Before going to the busses that would take them back to their schools, the children fed back some of their experiences of the day. I can’t describe how it feels when a 10-year old spontaneously says that you shaped the next generation of researchers. Also one of the teachers emphasized the impact this day would have on their life and later career choices. I don’t think there could have been a better ending to this Seven Stories project.

Author: Kathleen Vancleef

Uncategorized

A good morning’s coding

3 March, 2015 nastero Leave a comment

I’ve just come back from another fun morning working with Gareth down at Fluid Pixel. We are working on fine-tuning the critical 3D test image which we will be using to assess vision. Basically, it’s a pattern of small, colourful dots strewn randomly over the screen. On one side of the screen, a square patch of dots stands out in depth. The user’s job will be to spot this patch. We are using this stimulus because it offers very little information, other than that provided by the 3D itself. In the vision science literature, it’s known as a dynamic random-dot stereogram, and it’s one of the most rigorous tests of binocular visual function.

We streamlined the code, fixed a few bugs and experimented with different dot sizes and densities. I think the 3D patch is looking a lot clearer now. Tomorrow, Gareth and I will be sitting down again to work on the computer code which will control how demanding the test is. The basic idea is to start off easy and get harder, but it’s amazing how many ways there are of doing that!

Author: Jenny Read

Centre for Life, Meet the Scientist, Newcastle, Public, Public engagement, Workshop

Meet the Scientist at Centre for Life (17-18/1/2015 and 24-25/1/2015)

3 February, 2015 nastero Leave a comment

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

Newcastle, Public, Seven Stories, Uncategorized

Big ideas event at Seven Stories

22 January, 2015 nastero Leave a comment

So we now have another event in our diary: on March 31^st, we will present ASTEROID at the Big Ideas event at Seven Stories in the Ouseburn Valley! Using children’s books we will explain 3D vision to 10-12 year olds. I’ll be participating in several workshops organised by Seven Stories to explore how we could use children’s books for ASTEROID. So, I’ll be on a quest to find the perfect book for our project. What’s really exciting is that there are some artists involved too! They will be at the workshops inspiring us to make use of drama, film or cartoons in our activities. I’m curious what will come out of these workshops. It will be great to explore new creative ways of communicating science!

Author: Kathleen Vancleef

The blog for the fun 3D eye test