Keeping buzz-y

Over the last two and a half weeks I've been involved in a number of different communications endeavours at Scitech. It's incredible to experience first-hand how much preparation, organisation and effort goes into the promotion and delivery of each and every exhibit, exhibition and event at Scitech. The end of August and beginning of September saw the Scitech After Dark: Top Secret event and RoboCup, two completely different events targeted towards opposite demographics and organised by the same amazing group of people.

RoboCup has by far been the highlight of my placement so far. 400 primary and secondary school students flocked to Curtin Stadium on Friday 23 and Saturday 24 August for the WA RoboCup. RoboCup is an educational initiative that aims to foster and promote shared learning, development and research in the world of robotics to students across Australia. The WA competition saw robots dancing to music, playing a game of 2-on-2 soccer and negotiating challenging obstacles in a specially built arena while performing a rescue. The event allowed networking opportunities with journalists and photographers, as well as, yet again, incredible insight into the support Scitech gives as a not-for-profit organisation to the education of children. Social media was used to promote Scitech's involvement in the event across Instagram, Facebook and Twitter platforms, as well as a media release in the lead up to the event, and a post-event media release with photos and a list of the winners, sent to local newspapers in a number of different circuits around the state. RoboCup was supported by Rio Tinto, also a major sponsor of Scitech. 

Scitech After Dark is a unique, biannual event showcasing Scitech's current exhibition in an atmosphere created specifically for those aged 18 and over - NO kids allowed! On this particular occasion (August 31) the event was themed 'Top Secret', inspired by James Bond and based around the espionage exhibition by the same name; guests went undercover with their trench coats and spy gear to solve the mystery of the stolen computer chip. The night encouraged "fun without the kids" and as usual the popular event was just a few tickets from selling out. Unfortunately I was bedridden with the flu for the event, which in all honesty I was really disappointed about, but I assisted in some of the communications preparation which certainly impacted the success of the night. Media event listings were distributed to local online websites, family and adult-oriented, a media release was written up as well as a draft for a post-media release. We also lined up a competition with Experience Perth in which promoted the event on their website and allowed three viewers the chance to win 3 x double passes to the event. Photo's from the night were uploaded to FaceBook and it definitely looked like an enjoyable night was had by all!

As well as working on events, I've also been exposed to more behind the scenes communications tools used at Scitech, such as Joomla for website management. I was given the opportunity to write an online article for the Scitech homepage (www.scitech.org.au) about a new exhibit launching in anticipation of the October school holidays, 'The Visible Hive'; a live bee hive that allows visitors to observe what really goes on inside a bee hive and the roles each kind of bee plays in the 'bee world' (bees can even exit and re-enter Scitech through a clear tube allowing visitors to observe the neat processes of pollination). I'm now experienced with adding content, media and formatting to online websites while following the tone of voice and theme preferred by Scitech to appeal to both young and mature audiences. Unfortunately, because the exhibit hasn't been launched yet I can't provide a link to the brief website article, but it will be published and ready to be included in the appendices of my report. I'm also currently working on a media release for the bee hive in preparation for the launch. Writing content for both the website and the media release was a lot of fun; even though I was writing for varying audiences the vocabulary was playful and I was encouraged to use as many bee puns as possible!

With the October school holidays coming up, the communications team have many plans in place to push their exclusive holiday programs, promote new exhibits and enhance awareness and involvement on the closing exhibition. I've sent out media event listings, as well as a media release to local newspapers for their 'school holiday' sections, and even content for both 'What's On at Scitech' for the City West Newsletter, and a Scitech ENews article through the use of 'MailChimp', another web content management program.

I've also been working on each of Scitech's social media platforms but that's an ongoing project, and this blog post is already long enough! This Friday (20th September) is scheduled to be my last week on internship, so I will post a final blog outlining my final achievements, experience and performance afterwards.

That's it from me for now, over and out 99!

Natasha Weeks
Curtin University, Bentley

14853926

National Science Week!

National Science Week was from the 10th-17th August, and it was crazy. I was unable to find the chance to write a blog entry over the last few weeks due to my typical hectic schedule juggling work with Uni with my placement, but thankfully I wrote myself some fairly thorough notes so that it was still easy to share the experiences.

As the largest state with  diverse population, National Science Week works to showcase the science, technology, engineering and innovation that drives our communities and our economy; it is an annual event, which this year incorporated a new range of events and activities celebrated through art, film, comedy and theatre (National Science Week 2013).

Scitech's involvement in National Science Week included the festival event on Saturday the 10th August, and Science Cafe on Wednesday the 14th August. National Science Week Festival was a day of celebration and family fun, incorporating science, education and entertainment for all ages. It was also a great way to introduce some of the headlining organisations showcasing their science endeavours over the week. The day kicked off with a live broadcast of the 720 ABC Perth breakfast program, followed by interactive science displays by local organisations. Dr Chris Smith from The Naked Scientist also provided some entertainment! Fundamentally, my role for the National Science Week Festival was mainly carried out post-event through media event listings sent to local websites promoting events and places to visit around Perth, and making up a list of scheduled social media updates to add to HootSuite touching on the daily highlights of National Science Week.

Science Cafe was an event held in Winthrop Hall at UWA for 300 secondary students from schools around WA - completely different atmosphere. Students were invited to spend morning tea with around 80 inspirational scientists from a range of organisations including UWA, Curtin University, ECU University, Murdoch University, Scitech, DEC, CSIRO,WA Museum and SKM. Sarah Lau from the Chem Centre hosted the event, which gave students the opportunity to speak one-on-one with scientists to find out what inspired them to take up science and where their science careers have led them. Chris Smith from The Naked Scientist, also made an appearance at this event as a keynote guest speaker. My primary role at this event was to liaise with the photographer and assist him in getting quality photographs of a balanced range of schools across several media circulation areas. Part of this was making sure students had their name tags on display so that they could be identified later. I also assisted my supervisor, Charlotte, with noting quotes by guest speakers as potential leads for the post- event media release.

The week following Science Cafe, Charlotte and I sorted through the photos that were taken at the event (part of being a NFP means time is frequently consumed performing such tasks), put together the post-event media release and emailed it through to relevant media contacts! 

Phew! Getting a behind the scenes look at the impact of NFPs on education and science in younger audiences was an awesome and very rewardable experience!

That's it from me for now, until next time...

Natasha Weeks
Curtin University, Bentley

14853926