The FT project was invited to attend the Cheltenham Science Festival this year, and so we took a display stand along with plenty of postcard images from FTN to give away. Cheltenham is now in its 5th year, and attracts around 150,000 people over the 5 days, and is probably the biggest science festival outside of Edinburgh.
FTP was located in the Discovery Zone, opposite the RobotWars exhibit - our robotic telescope may have been offline with technical problems for most of the festival, and we wondered whether we should be getting some advice from the people with the fighting robots, as they seemed a lot tougher than FTN!
Picture: Sarah Roberts and Sam Penny on the FT stand at Cheltenham.
The Discovery Zone attracted over 10,000 people at the weekend alone, so staff on the FT stand were kept very busy explaining what the project was all about (and answering any questions that people had on life, the universe and pretty much everything!).
Next year it is hoped that FT can return to Cheltenham with a number of interactive demos and student workshops, and hopefully some big public live observing sessions as well. The example of the Warsaw Science Picnic shows what can be done with good weather, a working telescope and an enthusiastic crowd!
Picture: Large crowds attended the Cheltenham Science Festival, despite the hot weather and world cup!
