The 2011 NPL School Science Film Challenge : The NPL School Science Film Challenge : Educate + Explore : National Physical Laboratory

The 2011 NPL School Science Film Challenge

40 teams participated in the 2011 Challenge. Many thanks for all the hard work!

‘Judges Choice’ and grand awards are listed below.
Category nominees are also listed (white cells) with winners (yellow cells).
Category winners won a trophy plus a £75 token.

Judges' Choice (£50 token)
Static Sisters (Skipton Girls' High School)	Electricity Project	Electricity is really hard to describe using analogy. The team had a valiant go at this tricky subject.
The Isotopes (Bournce Grammar School)	Radioactivity	A beautifully composed and sensibly straightforward piece.
Science Sharks (The Hollyfield School)	Sweet corn: The Great Escape	Quite probably the yuckiest film ever submitted that we could show. Please note we are not setting a challenge here for next time!
MM (Independent)	Future Space Travel	Visuals from various sources blended with home-shot material in a considered and slickly performed study.
MOVER (Independent)	Wind energy and its uses	Well constructed and clear, a very mature piece of work with comments on the science and even politics of green energy generation.
Energy Man (Independent)	Forms of Energy	Very well organised, confidently explained and wonderfully concise. Lovely ‘cyclic’ story. Not so sure about eating Lego!
Team Invincible (Independent)	Light Bulb Experiment	He just makes it look so easy when we know popping together a demo with confidence that works in one take is really hard.
Macstar Studios (Independent)	Science with Jim and Friends	He just makes it look so easy when we know popping together a demo with confidence that works in one take is really hard.
Best School Runner Up (£50)
AVKG (St Mary's CE Primary)	Mysterious Bouncing Egg	Well scripted, spirited demonstrators and an excellent set of demos.
Best Independently made Film (Trophy and £300 cheque)
Spectrum	The Green Flash	This film had a grandeur and beauty to it. Almost mistakable for a prime time TV science programme, but with a cheeky grin in the form of people acting out dispersion. Great pace, graphics and demos. Hard to believe how much was crammed into just two and a half minutes. Thank you.
Best School made Film (Trophy and £500 cheque)
Fergus and Sam (St Albans School)	Quarks	A well paced and balanced examination of one of physics’ many intriguing ideas. The piece had confidence, charm and panache. Well done!

Category nominees and winners

Team	Film Title (click to view)	Summary
Best Physics
Duncan and Brian (St Albans School)	Egg in a Bottle	Classic show-then-explain format smoothly delivered. If you look closely, there's someone in the background creating the animation for this film.
The Geeks of Tomorrow (St Mary’s CE Primary)	The Coanda Effect	Classic show-then-explain format smoothly delivered. If you look closely, there's someone in the background creating the animation for this film.
MM (Independent)	Future Space Travel	MM's film considers the future of space travel from a participant's perspective. It includes future technology and how space and earth-bound lifestyles differ.
NH Productions (Independent)	Floating and Sinking	A very confident description of something that seems simple but is actually quite complicated to understand, let alone explain. Well done!
Red Hot (Independent)	FIRE	Cool, er sorry, hot well-paced collection of fire-related facts with some great special effects. Nice!
LLW Productions (Independent)	States of Matter	Neat! Nicely put together. Just how long did it take for that kettle to boil exactly?!
Best Chemistry
Teddington Science Club (Teddington School)	Chemical Reactions	Teddington Science Club ask: "How can you tell a chemical reaction has taken place?" and "What happens in a chemical reaction?". Watch and learn!
Team Eruption (Independent)	Volcano Mayhem	Lovely confident model volcano demo. Neat!
The Jelly Babes (Independent)	Screaming Jelly Baby Experiment	Our confident explainers remind us why not to spill potassium chloride over the sweet counter. A science demo from the ever popular department for blowing things up.
Best Biology
Ninors (St Elizabeth's Primary)	Snake Digestion	The Ninors of St Elizabeth's School investigate live snakes with some rather neat plasticene animations.
Science Sharks (The Hollyfield School)	Sweet corn: The Great Escape	Not for the faint hearted this one! Ominous music and scenes of a biological nature make for a rather gruelling experience. Well done!
InSync (Independent)	Primal Instinct	InSynch's hilarious documentary exploring the instinctual behaviour of homo sapiens and other creatures. More info
Best Energy Movie
MOVER (Independent)	Wind energy and its uses	A confident and slick production describing the past, present and future of wind turbine technology.
Energy Man (Independent)	Forms of Energy	A neatly laid out demo showing the flow of energy through a series of activities. Brilliant twist at the end.
Kinetic Energy experts (Independent)	Kinetic Energy	Very confident and enthusiastic demonstrations of kinetic energy using a toy car on an inclined plane, kicking a football and rubbing sticks together.
Rocket Stars (Independent)	Energy Save	Great film - thanks for sharing the outtakes. It's also really hard when members of the family bark or flick elastic bands at you throughout filming so you probably deserve an 'against adversity' award. Nice to see proper energy measurement in the home.
Shooting Stars (Independent)	The Energy Cycle	Fearlessly, in one shot, a line is taken for a walk around a variety of energy types. A really imaginative approach.
CS Productions (Independent)	Wind Energy	CS Productions' presenter does an impressive 'on the spot' report from underneath a wind turbine. He could be a TV reporter one day!
A Team (Independent)	Energy - Manmade and Natural	A nice attempt to examine wind power in model sailing boats. NPL helped film this exact demonstration with a TV company and had similar capsizing boat problems!
ARA Productions (Independent)	Legoton Lighthouse Energy Solutions	ARA Productions have tackled the subject of energy in buildings really comprehensively, using Lego, and all in one unedited shot. Brilliant!
Best Hands On Film
Keval and Pete (St Albans School)	Football	Actually, this is only here because we don’t have a ‘Foot on Film’ category. “The Physics of Football!” the narrator exclaims at the start of this gem from Keval and Pete. It brilliantly explains odd curved football trajectories though you do wonder if they’re just showing off a bit too! Neat music.
The Isotopes (Bourne Grammar School)	Radioactivity	‘The Isotopes’ slick demonstration identifying the key properties of the three types of radioactivity.
Team Invincible (Independent)	Light Bulb Experiment	Great to see a real handyman in action. Circuit construction made to look much easier than it is. Well done.
Feltham Studios (Independent)	Joshua Cotton's Flying Lesson	Confident explanations of the science of flight, or possibly an excuse to repeatedly throw model aircraft at your brother. Either way, lovely to watch and well put together.
Best Investigation Film
Team Nerds (Skipton Girls' High School)	Electricity	'Team Nerds' of Skipton Girls' High School with an electrifying investigation. Nice explanation of the energising of electrical systems using children on a playground.
K and C (St Mary's CE Primary)	School Bridge Partnership Project (RS)	A fantastic report on a study of bridge technologies and how to test and build engineering structures from rolled up newspaper.
Team Turner (Independent)	Mints experiment	The scientific approach applied to investigating various parameters of the well known coke-mentos demo. A really good investigative approach.
Most Entertaining Film
Fergus & Sam (St Albans School)	Quarks	Fergus and Sam of St Albans School, you rock! Films asking general public about science are always entertaining. Was the guy who knew what quarks were one of your teachers?! Nice explanations and well cut. We can’t believe the hairy bloke near the start didn’t know what a quark was!
InSync (Independent)	Primal Instinct	InSynch's hilarious documentary explores instinctual behaviour of homo sapiens and other creatures. More info here and here.
Sharky Productions (Independent)	FizzBang	Investigating what happens when mints are added to various types of fizzy drink.
Best Animation
Static Sisters (Skipton Girls' High School)	Electricity Project	The 'Static Sisters' of Skipton Girls' High School with an electrifying description of electrical circuits and their components - very nice animation, well, we love any animation using Smarties.
Stephen (St Albans School)	Gravity and Orbits	Everything you needed to know about gravity, orbits, and what happened to the dinosaurs. Lovely animation – respect is due: it must have taken ages to do!
Ben Z (St Albans School)	Stopping Distances	"Physics will blow your mind!" is claimed at the start of this film, but do we really need to see this literally illustrated? Yes absolutely we do in this brilliant animation from Ben Z of St Alban's School.
Macstar Studios (Independent)	Science with Jim and Friends	It’s all about forces – with beautifully animated Lego discussions of friction, air resistance and gravity.
Best Lab Demo
AVKG (St Mary's CE Primary)	The Mysterious Bouncing Egg	You'll believe an egg can bounce! All it takes is a little bit of shell dissolving using vinegar. Neat! Well done AVKG from St Mary's School.
Spectrum (Independent)	The Green Flash	Team Spectrum's lovely film describes and explains why the sun can flash green as it sets. Nice images, explanations and demos.
The Jelly Babes (Independent)	Screaming Jelly Baby Experiment	Our confident explainers remind us why not to spill potassium chloride over the sweet counter. A science demo from the ever popular department for blowing things up.