• Question: @Jon,Kat,Glyn,Debbie:Have you made a invention for the job you do?What is it?What dose it do???

    Asked by tst54mb to Debbie, Glyn, Jon, Kat on 20 Mar 2013.
    • Photo: Jonathan Stone

      Jonathan Stone answered on 20 Mar 2013:

      I adapted a couple of other inventions and applied them in a new place! I had a valley where I wanted to map volcanic hazards, and a load of volunteers who wanted to be volcanologists. The easiest way to map the valley was by using aerial photographs. So I got a camera and attached it to a kite. Then my volunteers walked up and down the valley, with the kite about 800ft above the ground, mapping it! It worked brilliantly…you can see one of the photographs from this on my profile! I want to do a similar thing if I win I’m a Scientist…using a remote controlled helicopter rather than a kite.

      Methods like this, which don’t just seem like boring science, really get people involved. The more people involved, the safer places are from volcanoes!

    • Photo: Debbie Crockard

      Debbie Crockard answered on 20 Mar 2013:

      I haven’t invented anything myself but my friend Jess invented “Jess’s tickling stick” which sounds a lot more dodgy than it was. It was basically a whole load of cable ties tied together that we used to “tickle” coral and other deep sea creatures to see if they give off light (bioluminescence). Simple but effective.

    • Photo: Glyn Barrett

      Glyn Barrett answered on 20 Mar 2013:

      I was working once with aphids and how they pass diseases between plants. The experiment needed me to move lots of aphids from plant to plant and to Petri dishes. As they are so delicate and easily squashable I couldn’t do this by hand or with tweezers or anything so I invented a sort of mini hoover made out of a hollowed pen with a a little screen at the end. I attached the other end of the pen to a water pump and then could suck up the aphids. Ingenious! I should of got a patent or something.

    • Photo: Kathryn McMahon

      Kathryn McMahon answered on 20 Mar 2013:

      I invent lots of little things to help me cut things up under the microscope. I bend needles to make little tools, melt very thin glass tubes to make tiny needles and make myself little moulds from jelly and plastic. Its quite fun, to be honest!

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