Grant was the winner of the Astronomy Zone in June 2013. We asked him for an update on how he has been using the prize money and here is what he said…
My I’m a Scientist memories are of a crazy few weeks where I typed as fast as I could trying to answer myriad questions. I don’t think my keyboarding skills are any better as a result, but it was great to see so much interest in my field!
I began with a vague idea of spending my winnings on a camera, and using it to take timelapse videos of the sky and what happens at some of the world’s great observatories, which I visit now and then. At some point I realised that lots of people already do this, (such as Christopher Malin), and they do a way better job than I ever could.
I love photography however, so I went ahead and bought a Gopro, with the new goal of using it to make some short films that aim to give an idea of what my job as a scientist is actually like. To show the cool stuff where I get to travel the world and hang out with other scientists, but also the less exciting everyday stuff where I sit at my desk and scratch my head.
Me sitting at my desk in Cambridge. I really am working! See the plots on my screen changing and me scratching my chin? Chin-scratching stimulates the scientific process.
Progress on this has been harder than I thought. It turns out there’s a knack to making time lapses look interesting, but not nauseating. I stuck the GoPro to my helmet for my bike ride to school (yes, I call it school because I go there to learn!), but the resulting film is rather disorientating. I also sat it on my desk while I drank my tea one morning, that works better, and you can see a short clip of it above. I’m slowly building up a bunch of these that make up a “typical” day, and when I’ve got enough I’ll put them together with a narrative to explain what my day to day life as a scientist is really like.
Me (in front of the blackboard) answering a question after a talk I gave at a conference at the Paris Observatory. I can’t remember either the question or the answer, but it clearly required me to wave my arms around. Luckily, body language is 90% of science communication.
I’ve also taken the camera on a few trips over the last year, to Santiago in Chile and to Paris. I made a really long timelapse of me giving a talk at a conference, and you can see a wee cut out of me explaining something by waving my arms around a lot. I’ll be taking the GoPro to some more places this year to build up a video of what a less typical day, where I get to go somewhere interesting, is like.
My hope is that when I’m done I can convince someone in a totally different field of science to take the camera and make their own videos, with the same goal of giving an idea of what a day or two in the life of a scientist is really like.
