Florence Nightingale the puppet is getting about over excited about Mr Gray's Anatomy. Like Ada Lovelace Florence is a Victorian icon famous for developing graphical representations of data and for being one of the founders of modern medicine.
Though she was made with the other four puppets that we developed after Ada she sadly has not had that many outings but now is her time to shine. The brain hat I knitted for the Science Showoff event will be one of her props along with the brain - she may have to share with some of the other puppets at times 🙂
Other works to go with her are scripts, research into her life, her manga self and a series of other textiles and papier mache props, possibly with some 3D printing.
She is very excited to be out and about and is currently relaxing after what has already been a hectic British Science Week - she will be at Cheltenham Hackspace on Sunday 19th of March (yes this Sunday as of time of posting), for the Science Cafe!
Cuddly Science is on the loose - cuddly science whoo hoo!
For those of you who don't know these are the Cuddly Science puppets - they are historical scientists, engineers, medics and technologists. They talk, sing, tell you things, answer questions. They can be used with all age groups including grown ups only!
They were hiding for a bit with the head injury mainly as it takes quiet abit of thinking to talk science. I think I did two events with them in the first year after the head injury and they were short little cameos not full on.
In the summer I managed to get them out to couple of festivals - but it was a whole year on by then! But I did still had to stick to my subject areas so we mainly did space!
However this doesn't mean I had stopped developing the idea and by the autumn we were back at Maker Faires and making papier mache fossils!
Having just taken the puppet Ada to International Womens Day and been part in amazing show where Ada had quiet a complex and new role, I am feeling confident that it is time for Cuddly Science to be doing more things 🙂
Being British Science Week (I often keep calling it National Science and Engineering Week which is what it used to be called), the puppets have been going into school for show and tell and of course we have the Science Cafe!
We now have a good variety of workshops from DNA extraction, to Light including smoke chamber, lasers and lenses! We have robot board games that show the basics of programming, and a universe in a box (this was an educational kit which I bought sponsering another identical kit to be sent to poorer regions).
Not to mention knitted brain hats and papier mache props, lab glass ware, and sand pits!
I'm even making a photo gallery of all the Cuddly Science stuff - it is taking me a long time as I still have to ration thinking time but it is getting there 🙂
This week is British Science Week so Ada and the other puppets are out and about, Mary was so exstatic to find out that she could take them in to her school for show and tell 🙂
Of course she now has her own wish list of puppets she wants making!
The puppets are for our Science Outreach, Communication, Education stuff which goes by the name of Cuddly Science and will be appearing at the end of the week at Cheltenham Hackspace for a Science Cafe!
It's the anniversary of the author Sir Terry Pratchett's death, I have been working my way through the Discworld books, it is taking time as I still struggle with reading since the head injury. I've started with what I think of as the Rincewind Books.
The Colour of Magic
The Light Fantastic
Sourcery
Eric
Interesting Times
The Last Continent
Science of the Discworld
The Globe
I've probably missed some out - I'm currently reading The Last Continet 🙂
Rincewind is one of my favourite characters, he reminds me a lot of my dad, being an accidental hero - thinking he's a coward etc... being a nice person, having issues with inanimate household objects that refuse to actually be inanimate (in dad's case it's coathangers).
Then I plan on reading the Death Books as I think of them. Death and Susan are again characters I love, especially when Susan has wild hair she can not control!
Reaper Man
Mort
Soul Music
The Hogfather
The Thief of Time
Again I am probably missing titles! If you see a glaring omission please comment!
Then The Witches Books (including the Tiffany Books as a subset - this is slightly unfair as Rincewind should count as one of the Wizards but the character sets are all so over lapped that there are many different ways you could divid it all up ie Hogswatch could be seen as a Wizard book as well as Death), followed by Vimes, The Services Books (De Word and Moist), Maurice and then Pyramids, Small Gods and another other miscellany I have missed!
Alaric bought me the graphic novel of Small Gods and I want to work my way through the graphic novels as well, I know there was a copy of The Last Hero that I gave to my brother but I'm not really sure where it ended up!
After that it is time for non-Discworld Terry Pratchett including the Long Wars books.
As you can see from the photo, Ada Lovelace the Puppet is relaxing with one of her favourite book - Equal Rites. This is most apt for the Victorian Maths genius who made the fist computer programme (or would have been if there'd been a computer to actually run it on!). She was educated but that was unusual for a women in her era, especially with maths and science but she excelled at it and this bought (and still does amazingly) a lot of hate.
She had to fight to be accepted academically, Equal Rites is about a young girl who ends up being a Wizard but is initially denied entry to the Unseen University. It seemed apt.
I actually took the photo for International Women's Day but I have included it in this post because apart from the issue of gender equality etc... it represents something else...
Ripples - "No one is finally dead until the ripples they cause in the world die away" - this is a quote from the Discworld series.
And Ada in many respects represents a ripple and the on going legacy of Terry Pratchett. Of course it is only one element of how she came to be but it is none the less still an element.
The story begins with me at school - my Chemistry Teacher Miss Scudder tries to explain the Discworld books to me and writes it down in my leavers book. It was given as an example of Sci-Fantasy that I would love - she was right.
So my science teacher introduced me to Terry Pratchett's work, again she was not the only one but she was the most authoritive? If that's the right word.
The books sustained me through my A'levels and stupid amounts of stress that we poor on our young adults in education. Then to university where again the mirrors and parrelles with various books helped me.
And finally the point at which I really felt like jacking the whole science thing in... Science of the Discworld appeared where they look at the geology/formation of our planet (our universe is accidently created by the Wizards). This book reminded me why I was damn well studying rocks!
Then of course things went catastrophic health wise but JK, Pullman and Pratchett where there as my comfort reads (along with the three Annes and "coughs" the point horrors). Reading them took on a slightly more abstract purpose, they showed twisty corkscrews of lives, not the nice neat progressions that is expected.
In short they helped me reform to new paths and to climb around, under and sometimes into the obsticals that got in my way. They showed me that other routes are not wrong routs just different.
In many ways the books helped me think outside the box as it were - Cuddly Science, the art, the craft, the writing etc... all of that and how I use it and fuse it... is a little bit off centre as it were. Terry Pratchett showed me with his mirror worlds that that was great, that was how the world gets changed for the better... little by little by little.
So my science teacher introduced me to the Discworld, the Discworld, sustained my and kept me interested in science, taught me to think squiggly, squiggly thinking lead to me making puppets to teach kids science.
Sunday was the first ever Fun Palaces weekend in Gloucester with events all over the UK. The event in Gloucester was organised by the accessible theatre company Two Can run by Nickie Wildin.
I was pointed in the direction of Fun Palaces by a mutual friend as it's ethos is similar to the Cuddly Science (my puppets and sci-craft activities) mission statement - Science for All and the idea that everyone should and can be part of science, art, music, sport = culture.
As a grass root, community driven event it needed contributors so we took the Puppets and did Cuddly Science and junk modelling and I did a poetry set.
Alaric helped with bunting and the girls did a lot of colouring!
There was a wide range of people who came along and took part which is absolutely ace as part of the issue I have is our society is increasingly segmented meaning people find it hard to relate to others as they have never had interactions with people who are different to them.
This included Phillip who sleeps in shop doorway most nights and who was excited to help decorate his home as we stuck the artworks up in the window. Mary decided he was her new best friend and cried when he left.
The space itself ie the shop was donated and the furniture for workshops was loaned from the community enterprise The Furniture Recycling Project.
Ada Lovelace the puppet came out and even did a few little jigs on the street to let people know we were there! Also it is coming up to Ada Lovelace Day again so it was good to let people know about Ada!
The puppets and sci-craft help engage people who have a tendency to be scared of science and is part of how I break down barriers but my workshops are also flexible so I also did general junk modelling and spoke to people about junk art and upcycling - I even have a booklet on the stuff I've written now!
Some truly amazing pieces came out of the workshop from tweeting pop out birds...
To fire breathing dragons and thanks to Mary lots and lots of night vision goggles!
Running workshops is exhausting but fun and everyone seemed to really be enjoying themselves 🙂
We also got to promote the Cheltenham Hackspace as there was a skills exchange board, Jean also kept trying to put my on it to teach stuff like knitting! People were asking about the Hackspace and I found several people had initiatives that could do with junk modelling, comic book creating or cuddly science 🙂 So it was really kind of epic for us!
Then there was the bingo! With Beryl 😀
Turns out I suck at bingo but the lady who won one of my Love: A Stranger Dream candles loved it and Phillip won the cake and then insisted on sharing it with us all. It was an epic cake I am kind of sad I failed to get a photo of it!
Two ladies from Gloucester Cathedral came along to tell us about the projects that are and will be happening there including letting people know about their breakfast club and that they are getting solar panels!
I love the Cathedral space so it was great to hear about things especially how they are planning on turning the front bit into a community garden.
They had also bought with them pictures of stained glass windows and some of the green men carvings for colouring in which went down well with everybody but especially with Mary 🙂
Then it was Spoken Word time - I opened the set with my visual poem and narrative piece Reclaim the City which is part of my Found Poems of the Concrete series. People seemed to like it - I went for the Gloucester theme rather than Fun or Palaces.
I had made booklets for everybody to take away with them as it relies on the images and also I know I personally find it hard to recall stuff when you get bombarded with a lot of cool new things - so it is there for people to look at later if they wish.
Of course I then made the audience participate in Windy Gloucestershire which I was going to read but kind of transposed into singing without me actually noticing!
I also did Summer Sun another song-poem but this time I did do the spoken version. Jean took some photos the one above of Al and the one below of the poet from Food for Thought which is a poetry night that happens at Cafe Rene.
Then we had the brilliant Donna Williams who is a sign poet, in Donna's case she uses British Sign Language or BSL. Sign language is something I've struggled with since the head injury - according to my kids I used to sign nursery rhymes and things for them and my husband says I was quiet militant about this incase any of them ended up with hearing problems like I had as a child, I wanted them to be able to communicate - because not being able to communicate is the MOST frustrating thing. My mum says the main issue is that I knew the rudimentary of 3 different sign language systems, enough to help in classrooms and when I used help her at the day centre but I was not proficient as it were, and now I've got all three of them all muddled up in my head.
Interestingly I understood what was being signed but would not have been able to sign back at all. And also Donna did run through what some of the sings meant as well as vocalising some of the poems.
Mary's favourite was about cats 🙂 I did video it but have since found a better recording on Youtube.
I have written about sign poetry before including here, though interestingly I can't find the stuff about the American poet who started my interest. I am wondering if it was in an essay for my PGCert or something.
Donna was lovely and I think I've seen her/met her before but I am still really struggling with face recognition at the moment! To the point that I could not work out who Nickie (the lady who had organised the event!) was when I arrived.
Mary loved the event and Phillip so much that she had a melt down when it came time to pack up and leave. (And I mean melt down)
It was an amazing day and I hope we get to do it again next year. I met lots more creatives and found out about stuff in Gloucester - this is something I suck at - I will end up going off to Swindon, Bristol, Brum, London etc... and then finding out that there was a big culture spoken word, art etc... thing happening round the corner but only AFTER it has been and gone!
Art and Craft, Education, Sci/Tech, Society | sarah | 
Thu 16th Mar 2017 7:36 am | 
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