FameLab: Διαδίδοντας τις επιστήμες

To FameLab είναι ένας διεθνής διαγωνισμός με στόχο τη διάδοση επιστημονικών και τεχνολογικών ιδεών. Αυτό γίνεται μέσω της ανάδειξης νέων με ταλέντο στην επικοινωνία της επιστήμης. Κάθε διαγωνιζόμενος έχει τρία λεπτά για να αναπτύξει ένα θέμα της δικής του επιλογής χωρίς τη χρήση διαφανειών, αλλά μόνο με ότι μπορεί να φέρει μαζί του ο ίδιος επάνω στη σκηνή.

Ο διαγωνισμός ξεκίνησε το 2005 στο Cheltenham Science Festival και διαδόθηκε γρήγορα, ξεφεύγοντας από τα όρια της Αγγλίας και πλέον μέσω του Βρετανικού Συμβουλίου διοργανώνεται σε πάρα πολλά μέρη στον κόσμο. O τελικός του Ελληνικού FameLab έγινε κατά τη διάρκεια του 2ου Φεστιβάλ Επιστήμης και Τεχνολογίας “Athens Science Festival“. Δυστυχώς δεν βρήκα περισσότερες πληροφορίες για τα αποτελέσματα.

Όσοι φτάνουν στην τελική φάση του διαγωνισμού κάθε χώρας, συμμετέχουν σε ένα masterclass σχετικό με την επικοινωνία της επιστήμης ώστε να προετοιμαστούν καλύτερα για τους τελικούς. Για τους προκριθέντες από Γαλλία, Ελβετία και CERN αυτό έγινε στις 25 και 26 Απριλίου στο CERN. To σεμινάριο από μόνο του είναι ένα εξαιρετικό βραβείο για όσους φτάνουν μέχρι αυτό το στάδιο του διαγωνισμού! Στη δική μας περίπτωση, μας μίλησαν ο Quentin Cooper, δημοσιογράφος πάνω σε θέματα επιστήμης με εκπομπή στο BBC Radio και ο Karl Byrne, παλιός συμμετέχων στο διαγωνισμό και πλέον από τους συντονιστές του. Έδωσαν πλήθος χρήσιμων συμβουλών και πραγματοποιήσαμε ασκήσεις στην αφήγηση ιστοριών, την αλληλεπίδραση με τις κάμερες, και την προετοιμασία παρουσιάσεων στα πρότυπα του FameLab.

O Quentin Cooper κατά τη διάρκεια του masterclass

Στις 8 Μαϊου διοργανώθηκε σε κοινή εκδήλωση ο τελικός του Ελβετικού και του CERN FameLab, καθώς το εργαστήριο συμμετέχει φέτος για πρώτη φορά σαν ξεχωριστός οργανισμός στο διαγωνισμό. Υπήρχαν 9 διαγωνιζόμενοι από Ελβετία (αν και κανένας δεν είχε την ελβετική υπηκοότητα!) και 5 διαγωνιζόμενοι απο το CERN, αναμεσά τους κι εγώ με το κουβαδάκι του φίλου μου Παναγιώτη.

Mεγάλοι νικητές ήταν η Lillian Smestad για το CERN και ο Oskari Vinko για το Ελβετικό FameLab ο οποίοι και θα διαγωνιστούν στον τελικό του International Science Festival στο Cheltenham (good luck Lillian & Oskari!). Το κοινό εκτίμησε την επιστημονική μου προσπάθεια με τα κουβαδάκια και τον Elwood και μου έδωσε το audience award 🙂

 

Οι φωτογραφίες από το διαγωνισμό είναι copyright CERN και το πλήρες σετ υπάρχει στο CERN Document Server. Δυστυχώς λόγω τεχνικών προβλημάτων το βίντεο δεν έχει γίνει ακόμα διαθέσιμο.

Ενημέρωση 9/6/15 : Τα βίντεο ανέβηκαν!

Famelab 2015 Switzerland Winner, Oskari Vinko:
http://cds.cern.ch/video/CERN-MOVIE-2015-023-003?showTitle=true

Famelab 2015 CERN Winner, Lillian Smestad:
http://cds.cern.ch/video/CERN-MOVIE-2015-023-002?showTitle=true

Famelab 2015 CERN Audience Award Winner, Christos Lazaridis:
http://cds.cern.ch/video/CERN-MOVIE-2015-023-001?showTitle=true

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Elwood :: 2012 flashback

Hear, hear. Elwood M. speaking now.

In this post you shall find the series of photo shoots that we did during 2012. I won’t even complain about the fact that I was forgotten behind and did not visit Oxford, or London, or Gaidouronisi (better not forget me this summer as well!). I will just focus on the good moments. It was a fun year, especially after summer. We did plenty of trips and had loads of fun. Here’s to more memories like these… now, let’s dive in…

The first half of the year was pretty quiet. We did go to Paris mid-March and got a couple of photos, but nothing worthwhile; there was also a visit to Austria late August from which the artistic outcome was also not up to par with our usual standards. We went back to both places in 2013 and did a much better job, so wait for a future post! 

For some time now we wanted to take a couple of pictures in Gruyeres at Switzerland and I think this time we did a decent job. So, we shall start our photographic journey at château de Gruyeres where we went in September: [singlepic id=14 w=320 h=240 float=center]

…and this one is in front of the Giger museum which is nearby. Giger is the designer behind the visual artwork of the Alien movies among other things. Strange guy; brilliant but a bit weird as well (if you take a look at his work you’ll understand what I mean) and as wikipedia informs us, he “suffers from night terrors and his paintings are all to some extent inspired by his experiences with that particular sleep disorder”. I feel the quote saying something about a fine line between genius and insanity suits here quite nicely. [singlepic id=15 w=320 h=240 float=center]

The very next day we went to Chamonix, underneath the highest mountain peak in the Alps: Mont Blanc. [singlepic id=16 w=320 h=240 float=center]

Next trip was to the Swiss-Italian borders in October, near Col du Grand Saint Bernard where we were lucky to get great weather, which means it was mostly sunny and we did NOT freeze completely while we were outdoors taking photos: it was quite windy and with the temperature near the low single digits. [singlepic id=17 w=320 h=240 float=center]

…a small step for Elwood… well literally, it’s a HUGE step… [singlepic id=18 w=320 h=240 float=center]

For a couple of shots I had to take over, because our beloved photographer was out of shape and could not frame the mountain peak accross properly. Shame. [singlepic id=19 w=320 h=240 float=center]

Late October we paid a visit to our friend Angeliki in Strasbourg and took the opportunity to travel to Freiburg im Breisgau in Germany on an open market day. That last bit rendered the procedure of taking this photo a funny ordeal for people around us for some reason I could not comprehend. [singlepic id=20 w=320 h=240 float=center]

Same day, on the way back, we stopped at Kehl at the French-German border to walk on the Pont de l’Europe bridge at dusk. We were hungry, schnitzels were nearby so taking the proper time to set up the photo was out of the question! [singlepic id=21 w=320 h=240 float=center]

And then in was Granada. Oh Granada. By the way, there should’ve been a dedicated post about this trip… oops… This one was taken at the porch of restaurante Jardines de Zoraya, at Albaycín. We enjoyed great food and amazing traditional flamenco. Oh, and an awesome crema Catalana! [singlepic id=22 w=320 h=240 float=center]

From the same spot, a “backstage” photo with the lighting setup that was used. Lit underneath using a cell phone… ever tried having a flashlight shining from under your butt? [singlepic id=23 w=320 h=240 float=center]

Dawn, with Alhabra in the background… [singlepic id=24 w=320 h=240 float=center]

Inside Alhambra, it was plain beautiful. [singlepic id=25 w=320 h=240 float=center]

Again inside Alhambra, but the umbrella was leaking water so what seemed like a good idea for a photograph was never realized. [singlepic id=26 w=320 h=240 float=center]

So, looks like our timing is getting better and better! Only about half a year later you get the 2012 edition of our travel log! We have gathered plenty of material from 2013… just wait and you’ll see!

Elwood :: There and back again and then some more… (2011 edition)

Time to end this long period of silence! It’s been about a year and a half since my last update and the blame is not mine — look at the owner of this blog! During this time I traveled to many places (but I also missed some trips thanks to someone’s forgetfulness…). But let’s focus on the positive side of things! I am here, writing to you once more and for today I have a set of pictures from many nice places; some of them interesting, some not so much.

I will open with a not-so-interesting picture from an otherwise beautiful place (thanks C.!). This one is from Morges, a village near Lausanne:

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After this, we boarded on the plane and ended up in Madison, Wisconsin! Although I spent a lot of time indoors, in the few walks that we managed to do around the city I have to admin that I loved it and instantly became a favorite. The first picture is near a spot called Picnic point,near the university apartment neighborhood Eagle Heights. In the distance you can see the Wisconsin state capitol.

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Somewhere nearby the previous point we decided to get some rest and a photo together (I believe it’s our first one… awwwwww):

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Just before leaving to return back to Europe, we ended up on the Memorial Union Terrace, which is also overlooking lake Mendota as the previous photos. It was the ideal way to say goodbye to the place and friends there…

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Oh, and by the way, the reason for the trip can be seen in the photo below. Here you can see me posing with the PhD abstracts of Kira, Christos and Marc. Good times guys eh?

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Back to Europe now and a short trip to Bellegarde-sur-Valserine near Geneva. A nice walk next to the Valserine river is always refreshing when the weather is warm…

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Fast forward and we end up in Paris! We made a first stop in the Parc at cite universitaire (or at least that’s the parc I think it is… it’s been tooooo long ago!)

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The next day we visited Versailles… where the beds are small (for normal people that is, for me it was just perfect) 

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and there are long corridors between rooms…. too much walking… that’s probably how they exercised back then…

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A short visit to Brussels followed. Too much rain, not many interesting stuff. Unfortunately due to our schedule we could not visit the Atomium… at least we got a glimpse of it from the outside.

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Back to France and a visit to Vlasis and Margaret in Montpellier! The most interesting photos happened in the Cité de Carcassonne, the fortress that stands out of the rest of the city.

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The last photo shoot of the year happened in Greece! And more specifically near the Byzantine spa complex that bears the same name as the region: Άγκιστρο (Agkistro). There we stayed in a beautiful wooden hotel room and woke up with a wonderful view:

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till next time with the 2012 edition!

yours,
Elwood~~

Elwood :: Back in Greece

post by Elwood:

So, after some time in Switzerland with absolutely no shooting (blame Christos and his constant excuse that he is “busy” — why didn’t you take me to the Chocolate Festival??? eh???), a trip back to Greece for a physics conference in Patras was the perfect opportunity for some nice pics. I had the chance to listen to some interesting high energy physics talks (here during a talk of my friend Giannis):

Visit a hotel with an awesome view of the world’s longest multi-span cable-stayed bridge which connects Rio with Antirio:

On the way back we made a quick stop in Athens. We were in a bit of a hurry so we promised to return for better photos:

(I just hope it won’t be long till my next photo session — it gets extremely boring inside a camera bag!)

yours,
Elwood~~

Let me introduce you to…

my new pal and model, Elwood!

His greatest aspiration? To travel and take pictures everywhere around the world! For an appetizer he decided to visit Cape Sounio (Ακρωτήριο Σούνιο) near Athens. What you see in the upper right edge is an ancient Greek temple of Poseidon. The sunset view there is spectacular and he’s really enjoying it!