Megan O'Flynn, Laura Murgatroyd, and Will Furnell, all based at the Rutherford Appleton Laboratory (RAL), were elated to hear that they had been awarded the Visibility category prize.
Remote3 (Remote Cubed)1 is all about 'Remote sensing by Remote schools in Remote environments. It is a collaborative outreach project between the University of Edinburgh (UoE), STFC's Boulby Laboratory, RAL Public Engagement, and Scientific Computing.
Megan, Laura, and Will are all part of the Remote3 project organising committee. They were nominated by fellow committee member, Tom Dack, who says, “Will, Laura, and Megan have all stepped up this past year to ensure that Remote3 had the resources the programme needed to succeed.
“They have been leading this year's challenge design and implementation, as well as assisting and liaising with school mentors – volunteers from STFC and several Scottish Universities– to facilitate the successful delivery of the Remote3 activity. All three have shown great dedication and drive to promoting the work STFC technicians do. Their efforts and contributions were crucial to the successful delivery of the 2022 Remote3 activity, and they have gone above and beyond to ensure that the 2023 activity is an even greater success."
To obtain this award, the project had to demonstrate a significant contribution to the promotion of technician/technical work through external PR and outreach activities. The nominations were judged based on the degree in which those activities engaged with society in the context of STFC's mission:
'Inspiring future generations, disseminating knowledge of STFC's impact to the general public, and targeting hard-to-reach groups to
increase future diversity in the science and engineering communities.'
The Remote3 project consists of 13 different groups of students from 12 different schools working toget
her with their designated mentor to build, design, and program a Lego Mindstorms 'Mars Rover' to complete a set of judged challenges in the Mars Yard at Boulby Underground Laboratory, which is located at an impressive 1.1km underground!
The team engaged with students in remote areas because they have less access to STEM2 engagement and professionals compared to students in more built-up parts of the UK These students may not be as aware of opportunities in STEM compared to their peers in inner-city schools.
The work done behind the scenes and the unique contributions by each member of the Remote3 team attributed to the success of the project. Their aim to encourage budding student scientists pushed them to give their all to the project – and it showed!
Megan designed the challenge map which was printed to scale (4m by 2m!) and sent to schools so that teams could test their rovers before they were sent to RAL and Boulby.
Laura developed extensive documentation for the judges, including judging criteria, materials, and coordinated overall judging. This enabled the judges to judge the performance of the rovers in the mine fairly and accurately and made sure that every school was eligible for an award that was most appropriate to them.
Will provided technical expertise and was on-hand to answer all mentor questions – from the very basics of how best to save and share work to detailed questions about coding and robot structure. He was vital in facilitating smooth communication via visits, meetings, and other forms of contact between schools and mentors.
The three colleagues all played a key role in planning and leading large elements of workshops for teachers and mentors at launch events, and the preparation and testing of rovers ahead of the challenge days. At these workshops, the mentors learned about each challenge, as well as the basics of LEGO Mindstorms programming and robot design.
They made several trips to the Boulby Underground Laboratory, acting as hosts, robot handlers, and experts, interacting with and engaging with the students and teachers directly over Teams. They led school sessions, testing and giving feedback on how well each team's rovers were able to complete their challenges. Will also acted as a Judge on one of the celebration days, providing encouragement to the teams and assessing how well the rovers performed in the mine environment.
Megan, Laura, and Will agree that interacting over Teams was, “sometimes a tricky challenge given poor school internet connections and the noisy mine environment. The celebrations and excitement of the students when their robots successfully completed a challenge made any difficulties well worth it, though!"
The support the team provided to the project – at every stage from designing the challenges, creating resources, developing event plans, and engaging with the schools -has made a real difference to the students who took part.
As one teacher commented, “The team in school are overjoyed at the success and would like to thank everyone that has made the project possible."
Will says, “It means a lot to have this award, as we have put in lots of effort behind the scenes for this project, so it is great that the work that we are contributing is being recognised not just by the people that we work with, but the organisation as a whole. It also reinforces the benefits of undertaking public engagement work in addition to our primary day jobs and encourages me to keep my level of involvement of public engagement activities – which I really enjoy."
Megan, Laura, and Will have all been involved in leading workshops independent of the main project, as well. These have included workshops at the Electromagnetic Field Festival (EMFCamp) in 2022, Diamond Light Source, RAL Stargazing, and the Daresbury Open Week. The workshops allowed them to continue to engage with many members of the public of various ages – adults included!
Their desire and ability to outreach to a diverse range of individuals stretches beyond Remote3 as they continue to do excellent work to uphold the standards of STFC's Technician Commitment.
1 Remote3 is funded by a Spark Award and Public Engagement Leadership Fellowship from STFC with an aim to inspire the next generation of scientists.
2 STEM: Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics
