The British Interactive Group is somewhere between a professional association for science communicators and a self-help group. They host the excellent (as in ‘everyone who reads this blog should sign up’) BIG-Chat email list, and run an annual ‘Event.’ Which is sort-of a conference, but … well, you’ll just have to go to experience it.
Too late this year, though, as it’s on in Glasgow right now. Tonight’s shindig was the annual Best Demo Competition, which is sort-of a performance competition and sort-of a soapbox session for trotting out just plain neat ideas. There’s no more terrifying audience for a science communicator than the members of BIG… and no more forgiving an audience, either.
I’m missing the Event this year, but thanks to the lovely folks at Science Made Simple there was a live stream of tonight’s performances, and you can view it for yourself. Be warned – the audio is patchy (it gets better in the second and third segments), and there are many drop-outs. So it’s almost like being there, if you imagine yourself drinking heavily before showing up. Which would be traditional.
Some cracking ideas, some lovely performances, and some stuff that plain doesn’t work. Great combination.
Part 2:
…and the results (with a few extra demos because… because Best Demo):
Congrats to everyone who signed up to take part. Keep reading below for Elin’s thoughts on entering from last week…