Witney

Science and Technology

LAST MEETING

On March 27th, Graham gave us a talk on the Impact of Technology on cities. This was an entertaining talk on how technology has influenced the development of the various modes of transport throughout the ages and the effect these have had on the devlopment of our cities.

NEXT MEETING

Our next talk on Wednesday April 24th at 10.00 am in the Radford Room will be by Bryanna Clare who is the author and illustrator of Drone City. Drone City fuses fantasy with reality, igniting the imaginations of young people, exciting them with all that is possible for the future. Our picture books and school visits showcase real drone careers and enterprises that are making a difference today. The stories we tell at Drone City, both fictional and non-fictional, show that technology is a formidable force that, when wielded with compassion, can bring about monumental progress.

U3A members interested in joining the Group should contact the S&T Group Leader.

NEXT VISIT

Arrangements are being made for a group visit to the Rosalind Franklin Institute at Harwell on Wednesday May 22nd.

2024 PROGRAMME

If you are unable to attend any of our meetings you do not have to give up on learning about science and technology! You may wish to visit: Royal Institution Videos (https://www.youtube.com/user/TheRoyalInstitution) Here you will find a great many lectures on various science subjects all in a very easy to understand format. Just skip through any adverts that may come at the start of any lecture.

The Rutherford Appleton Laboratory has a range of free resources for science learning. Click here: RAL Resources for details and links. A list of their forthcoming events, including their fascinating free Talking Science talks, can be found here RAL Events.

OBJECTIVES OF THE GROUP

The objectives of the Science & Technology Group (the S&T Group) are:

• to cover a wide range of scientific and technical matters

• to appeal to members who have some scientific or technical qualification and/or experience, at whatever level

• to appeal to members who know nothing scientific or technical, but are willing to have their minds stretched and learn something new and different.

MEETING ARRANGEMENTS

The group meets at 10.00am on the 4th Wednesday of each month except December and (sometimes) August. Currently the group meets in the Radford room at the Methodist Church complex in High St. Witney. There is a break at about 11am for coffee and the meeting closes at around 12.15. After this some members go for a simple lunch locally. There is a charge of £3.00 to pay for the room but sometimes the meeting is "free" if sufficient funds have accumulated.

The group is open to all members of Witney U3A and ladies are especially invited to join in order to provide a more balanced membership and give different views on the topics discussed.

FORMAT OF MEETINGS

Normally the speaker is a member of the Group but once or twice each year it is usually possible to engage an outside speaker.

Once or twice each year there is a visit to a place of interest and members pay for a coach and an entrance fee if required.

PAST SUBJECTS

In the past year or two there have been presentations on such varied subjects as:

• Recent developments in Cancer Research

• Stealth aircraft and how they avoid radar detection

• Epigenetics

• Modern technology applied to brewing

• Exoplanets

• Gene editing

VISITS

Visits have been made to:

• Waste Water Treatment Site at Didcot

• The Bristol Aerospace museum

• Bletchley Park

• A satellite tracking station

• The BMW Mini plant at Cowley

On 22nd June 2022 we visited the Hydraulics Research Laboratory at Wallingford. This is a world leading laboratory dealing with all aspects of water, solving the world's most complex water challenges. I think that most members present were amazed at the work of the Lab. from the way that they can model a river estuary containing a new harbour and try out various tides and wave heights to the effect of protecting a coast with a new sea wall and ways of controlling inland flooding. In addition we saw very realistic high-tech simulation of piloting a large ship through a harbour entrance or along the River Thames.

On 26th May we had a very interesting visit, courtesy of Thames Water, to the Sewage Treatment plant at Didcot. The Plant Manager and Education Coordinator gave presentations on the sewage treatment process and then we were taken on a tour of the plant to view the various stages. The picture shows us standing in front of a silo containing an end product of the treatment process - sewage sludge - a valuable fertiliser.”

On a previous visit we visited the Cotswold Distillery. Tucked away, just over the Warwickshire border, the Distillery is another award winning enterprise producing both gin and whiskey. Gin is apparently enjoying great popularity at the moment and is no longer the drink your granny occasionally imbibed. A lot of care is taken in the blending of botanicals to give distinctive flavours. Cotswold whiskey is made from locally grown grain and is matured in barrels from France and Spain for at least 3 years and one day. This is the minimum legal requirement for whiskey although most is matured for far longer. Incidentally there was a Spanish lorry unloading old sherry barrels whilst we were there! The distillery boasts a superb cafe so after an exhausting ‘scientific’ tour we all enjoyed an excellent lunch. Oh, and yes, there was tasting of both gin and whiskey with the distillery providing take away samples for the drivers. As someone was heard to comment, ‘This is the best take-away I’ve ever had’.

PRESENTATION PLANNER

One of our members, has kindly written some excellent software to help with preparing a PowerPoint presentation.

The author is a retired Chartered Engineer having worked in the field of specialised computer systems, and designed both hardware and software. He has used macros, both professionally and at home, in Excel, and PowerPoint since the 1990’s. and developed an HCI Designer, ‘Walk’ Presenter and a multi games system; the former two being the basis for his Presentation Planner.

Suppose you have a large number of photos of a visit you made to some facility or a mixture of such photos and others. In essence the software automates the creation of a draft presentation without having to be a PowerPoint expert.

A description of the software can be found here: Presentation Planner and the author can be contacted here The Presentation Planner Author