Southampton students flying high...

Today was a big day for the students on the Aeronautics course at Southampton. John Farley, chief test pilot for the Harrier programme, came to fly our third-year's airliner designs on the flight simulator (www.sfsim.com). After a few shakedown flights each team had 30 mins to explain their design and then let the test pilot put it through its paces. Nerve-wracking moments for the students, but thrilling too. Seeing their designs take to the air was great for all involved! After a long day of flying it was hard to differentiate between all of the teams. Hard work by all the students had paid off handsomely, but there was one clear winner. Team E's design stood out as the best flyer, so kudos not only to them, but to everyone for a job well done :)

Action Stations, Action Stations!!!

Another interesting project has come to fruition this week. We've been helping out Action Stations, in Portsmouth Historic Dockyard, to develop their new INTERACTION exhibit. This is a huge bunch of brand new activities to have fun with! Learn all about how ships, submarines, planes and helicopters. You can race different ships down the 5m long towing tank, wear yourselves out with the huge lift fan (just like the Joint Strike fighter), control a nuclear reactor in a submarine, and many more games to get to grips with. We're just polishing off our Virtual Trafalgar exhibit now, to install next week. Here you can sail an America's Cup yacht alongside HMS Victory at the Battle of Trafalgar to compare their performances. So get on down to Portsmouth and man your Action Stations!!!

Famous Face for West Quay Science Week Extravaganza

Breaking news... University of Southampton graduate Chris Packham will be helping out at West Quay on 11st March! Come along to say Hi, take part in our fun activites, and find out more about the Ocean & Earth Day (18 March), and Family Science Day (25 March) events for all the family. See www.creatingthefuture.net for more and win an iPod or Digital Camera! You heard it here first, so stay posted to stay right up to date on the latest exciting happenings around the University.

Science Week at UoS

Well, you heard it here first... Science Week in Southampton is going to be bigger and better than ever before! We're very excited and have been planning like mad to make sure that it's going to be fabulously fun for everyone :) More info will be appearing at www.creatingthefuture.net If you just came here from there then hopefully you'll know all about it and can tell your friends! The first event will be on Saturday 11th March at West Quay shopping Centre, in the middle of Southampton! You can find out all about 'Colour' and see some budding young Formula One designers building an electric powered racing car. You may have seen these on Richard Hammond's 5 O'clock show last Friday on ITV. Come along to West Quay to find out what's happening throughout Science Week and beyond. We don't do things by halves, so Science Week at UoS is actually lasting for a fortnight . More details will be revealed here in the coming weeks, including behind-the-scenes action! Cheers for now :)