Thursday 12th July
Project Work
The teams continued to work on their projects, vying for the much coveted prize of a Nintendo DS with two games!
Socialising Technologies
Kingsley Dennis from the Centre for Mobilities Research within the Department of Sociology at Lancaster University gave an inpsiring talk on some unlikely origins of technologies, their development, and their influence on our day-to-day lives.
Kingsley spoke about some modern technology paradigms, such as social networking (MySpace, Facebook), weblogs (like this ;)) and 'flash mobbing'. Kingsley also gave some speculation as to what the next 50 years of technology may be, and what these could mean for us.
Trip to Coniston
The Headstart attendees spent the afternoon on a trip in the Lake District and took a trip on Coniston Waters with the Coniston Launch company.
Gordon Hall, general manager of the Coniston Launch spoke about the technological advances his company has made to their two boats to make them more environmentally friendly. Their two boats were converted to be run mainly on solar-electric power. Solar panels charge batteries which drive an electric motor and propeller. The conversion to solar-energy has allowed the company to cut its carbon emissions by over half - from 5 tons to just 2 tons p.a.
Gordon has a great passion for technology and engineering. His boats are equipped with a Mac Mini that operates a bespoke ticketing system for Coniston Launch. But not only that, it also provides some other nifty functionality too! The computer is connected to a GPS receiver that can pinpoint the vessel's location on the water. It is also connected to a GPRS modem, that is able to contact a server computer on land. Through the GPRS connection, Gordon can inform the emergency services of the number of passengers he is carrying on his boat at any one time. This is a legal safety requirement, that until very recently has been paper based. A live online map is also available which charts the location of the boats as they navigate the lake.
