The group is open to all members of Witney U3A who are interested in Science and Technology and its impact on our lives.

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

• to cover a wide range of scientific and technical matters
• to encourage members with scientific or technical experience to share their knowledge with fellow members
• to appeal to members without a scientific or technical background who are interested in science and its impact on our lives

MEETING ARRANGEMENTS

The group meets at 10.00am on the 4th Wednesday of each month, except December and August, in the Radford room at the Methodist Church. Currently the group meets in the Radford room at the Methodist Church in High St. Witney. we usually break at about 11am for coffee and the meeting closes at around 12.00. After this some members go for lunch locally. There is a charge of £5.00 to pay for the room but sometimes the meeting is "free" if sufficient funds have accumulated.

FORMAT OF MEETINGS

Normally the speaker is a member of the Group and all members are encouraged to take part by making presentations. On occasion it is possible to engage an outside speaker.

At least once a 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:

• 3D Printing
• The Jet Engine
• The battle against viruses: Phages in action
• Artificial Intelligence
• Accoustics: the art and science of sound design
• Air Pollution in Oxford
• The collapse of the bridge in Baltimore Harbour
• The story of London's First International airport

VISITS

In recent years visits have been made to:

• Waste Water Treatment Site at Didcot
• The Rosalind Franklin Institute at Harwell
• The Oxfordshire Museum Resource Centre at Standlake

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

Links

• The Presentation Planner
• RAL Events
• RAL Resources
• Royal Institution Videos
• Zooniverse web portal