The 2019 Josh Award was won by Frederike Gerstner and Ben Nicholson, who brought their show The Juggling of Science to the museum for our October half-term holiday programme.
The show combines Fred's experience of performing and choreographing juggling shows with Ben's background of engineering, using the technical juggling training of both performers. It contains topics studied as part of the secondary school syllabus, using juggling and a voiceover soundtrack to visually illustrate scientific ideas. Ben and Fred juggle balls and rings to show atoms and molecules. There’s even a section on the upcoming and eco-friendly technology of the hydrogen fuel cell.
Read Ben and Fred's post on the museum blog to find out more.
Mat started communicating science during his PhD at Cardiff University, developing various VR and AR platforms to do so. His Josh Award project used tactile and interactive activities, designed to be suitable for use by people with visual impairments, to describe astrophysics.
Mat said:
"The Josh Award has given me some amazing opportunities in science outreach. I have been able to continue my project, to engage with visually impaired audiences around astronomy through working with local visual impairment organisations and charities. I've been able to further improve the resources and how I deliver them, whilst I hope to continue to expand the scope of the project.
"Additionally, working with the team at Manchester Science Festival has given me the confidence to restart Cardiff Science Festival, something that I have wanted to do for a number of years. I am proud to now be the director of the festival, which reaches over 10,000 people annually through STEM events, using the knowledge that I gained from working with the festival team. The Josh Award has allowed me to steer my science engagement career in the direction that I want and has opened up countless opportunities to me."
In 2017, science rapper Jon Chase won the Josh Award. Jon is a BBC Bitesize science presenter and has produced science raps for the BBC, Channel 4 Learning and NASA, amongst others. He is also an author, having recently co-written a book about the science of Star Wars, as well as a soon-to-be-released book on the science of Harry Potter.
His event, Hip Hop Science Stop Weekender, brought street and urban science to life with visitors getting hands-on with graffiti walls and turntables. He put on special performances for families, featuring a selection of his own raps and showcased science raps from around the globe. Visitors also learned how they could use everyday objects and waste materials such as straws, paper and string to do simple science experiments at home.
Local mathematician Dr Katie Steckles won the 2016 Josh Award.
She turned the museum into a giant hand-made, crowd-sourced image during the festival. Her winning application had visitors helping to colour thousands of individual 'pixels' that would make up a picture in one of the museum's windows, representing how digital devices such as computers, tablets and phones display images.
The project also looked at the mathematics behind how devices store images as a series of numbers that create the different colours on screen. There was also a close-up look at the pixels in phone screens, and a photo booth that transformed visitors into an Excel spreadsheet of colour values.
Katie said:
"Winning the Josh Award was a great opportunity to promote myself and boost my profile, and it was wonderful to do a big project and give many people the chance to interact with maths at the festival.
"It's great that up-and-coming science communicators can showcase what they're doing and get a boost of awareness through this award, and attending the BIG event puts you in front of the whole science communication community, providing a ready-made support network and contacts. It was huge fun, and wonderful to honour Josh's memory by continuing his tradition of sharing a love of science!"
In 2015, Andy Miah brought a drone expo to the museum. The Revolution Manchester gallery was taken over as a fly zone for drones. People had a go at flying a drone to see how they actually fly and found out more about what drones can be used for.
Andy Miah is the chair of science communication at the University of Salford.
2014: Sarah Bearchell
2013: Aravind Vijayaraghavan
2011: Matt Parker
2010: Steve Cross
2009: David Price
2008: Karen Bultitude
2007: Chris Smith
