Florence Nightingale The Puppet (by sarah)

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! (by sarah)

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 🙂

Ada Out and About (by sarah)

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!

Ripples… (by sarah)

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.

These are RIPPLES.

GNUTerryPratchett.

She Said Women! (by sarah)

On Wednesday near Cheltenham in a lovely WI Hall we are putting on a show of womens voices, ranging from the new mother's fear to influential female writers to Ada Lovelace the puppet (yes her - the puppet I drag around with me to things! The first computer programmer - from before there were computers).

Half of the profits made go to a charity for women escaping violence and abuse in Gloucestershire.

The Facebook event is here.

The event is being put on by Foul is Fair Theatre.

Come and celebrate International Women's Day Gloucestershire-style this 8th March, at the WI Hall in Prestbury, where a host of local female performers, theatre-makers, puppeteers and performance poets will be delivering an artistic banquet of female-focussed creativity. There will be singing, Virginia Woolf, a lady selling cupcakes, a Greek Goddess, wine and much, much more!

Tickets are £10/£8 with at least 50% of profits going to GDASS (Gloucestershire Domestic Abuse Support Service) - available from Eventbrite or on the door. Doors open at 7.30, performances start at 8pm.

Come and Join the Party!

Hosted by Foulisfair Theatre