Blue Fusion

The team are taken on a tour of the control room for IBM Hursley’s somewhat elderly reactor and are introduced to the basic elements of the power generation system. The three sections of the console map to the three main parts of the reactor: the core and core coolant loop, the steam generation system and the turbine-generator assembly. The controls are used to match the power production to the demand of the local area. The core is controlled primarily by the level of the control rods in the reactor core and the speed of the coolant pump. The control rods absorb the neutrons that drive the fission process and can be used to control the core temperature, while the coolant pump controls the rate at which heat is removed from the core and supplied to the heat exchanger. The core controls should be used to maintain a nominal operating temperature of around 800 Kelvin, allowing the core to become overly hot risks a Core Migration Event. The steam generation system controls include the water pump and a steam divert function. The water pump controls the supply of water to the heat exchanger for boiling, removing heat from the core. If insufficient water is sent to the heat exchanger then residual heat in the coolant will cause the reactor core temperature to rise. The steam divert function allows for temporary storage of steam which can be released later and supplied to the turbine, the pressure in the steam chest should be carefully monitored to prevent the automatic safety valve discharging. The discharge is fairly harmless as the steam is not radioactive, but does usually lead to protests and public panic in Winchester, Romsey, Eastleigh and Southampton as everyone seems to think it is. The turbo-generator is where the steam created is used to produce the electricity that powers Hursley. The main turbo-generator controls are an inlet valve from the steam system and for the variable pitch blades in the turbine. The inlet controls the rate of power production, however if the inlet valve is set too low then steam will back up in the steam generator. The blade pitch control is used to vary the rate of rotation for the turbine. The turbine rotation speed determines the frequency of electricity generated, IBM has a lot of sensitive equipment and the National Grid doesn’t like being supplied the wrong frequency. Therefore our generator feeds into a frequency matching circuit to make what we produce 50Hz exactly. Unfortunately this matcher only works on a narrow frequency range so we have to be careful not to break it!

If the reactor temperature is allowed to rise to high then a bubble of coolant vapour may form around the core, dramatically reducing the cooling of the reactor and causing further temperature rises. As the temperature increases the neutron capture cross section of the Uranium fuel rises to the point that a new equilibrium is set up in the reactor at temperatures as high as 4000 Kelvin. This temperature is significantly above the fuel rods melting temperature and so initiates a meltdown. This core migration event is likely to hit a pool of liquid coolant and cause a Fuel Coolant Interaction, this causes an explosion of highly pressurised coolant vapour and produces hydrogen. If this explosion breaks containment there is likely to be an additional explosion due to the release of the hydrogen.

In this activity, you designed and built your own grand prix racing car from a selection of parts for each of the main components which go to make up the car. In addition, you also had to select the best route to take around the track to minimise your lap time.

The students are given many different puzzles to solve, earning cash to buy missing parts of a marble run. Marbles are entered into the system every five minutes and their score is increased according to how far through the marble gets.

The team play the part of a CSI team collecting clues from around the house in order to solve the murder before the murderer has time to escape. The task will focus on collecting, sharing and presenting and drawing conclusions from a rich variety of data in order to build as strong a case as they can in the allotted time.

During this activity you formed part of a crime scene investigation (CSI) unit investigating the murder of the Hursley House Librarian. Using cutting edge investigative resources and forensics techniques, you raced against the clock to narrow down 6 suspects and find the culprit. Your team was split into 3 areas: information gathers, who interviewed suspects and communicated results using a mobile device, a forensics team who analysed evidence and the legal team who built your case and presented the findings. You used emerging technologies such as LAMA (Location Aware Messaging for Accessibility), as well as Bluetooth and collaboration software BlueLeaf. You also experienced, through simulations, forensic techniques used in the field, such as gel electrophoresis patterns for DNA fingerprinting, and infra-red spectroscopy and X-ray diffraction for substance identification.

Gel electrophoresis encompasses a variety of techniques, some of which are used by scientists to prepare molecules for DNA sequencing. Samples are placed in a gel and an electromagnetic force is applied to separate the molecules. Finally the gel is stained so that the molecules can be identified visually.

Spectroscopy is used to identify the composition of a substance. Typically, a single beam of infra-red light is split into 2 beams. One is used as a control and is passed through some reference material and the other is passed through the sample to be studied. The resulting 2 signals can then be compared. Different chemical bonds vibrate at different frequencies hence affect the infra-red beams differently and so the substance can be identified.

LAMA is an application designed for mobile devices, which provides its users with a wide range of services relevant to their location. Services may include useful day to day information such as news reports, or, more critical information such as fire alarms.

The Universal Inbox is a Java framework for small mobile devices, such as Smartphones and PDAs. It gives you the ability to create applications which can access live and up-to-date information from numerous sources in one central location. The Universal Inbox makes information available to you anytime, anywhere.

BlueLeaf is a content generation and assessment tool, designed to support traditional teaching methods while shortening the feedback loop between students and teachers - providing teachers with a variety of information about their students in real-time. Through using BlueLeaf, teachers can choose more accurately when to make interventions within the classroom and tailor their learning accordingly to provide a more personalized service.

The students are a village council and their job is to balance their credit and carbon budget while maintaining the happiness of the Villagers.

The team are given data from weather stations around the UK. They use this in conjunction with basic rules to work out the forecast for the next two days. They then have to present this forecast, the more accurate their predictions the higher their score.

Weatherman provides an opportunity for students to develop their understanding of the weather, and how it's predicted. Each team receives sample data, numerical and graphical, and applies to that data a set of rules to determine the weather forecast for the next 2 days. They are given 20/25 minutes to forecast the weather, after which time the forecasts must then be presented to a panel, and marked against a model answer for accuracy. The team are also marked for teamwork and the presentation itself.

Weatherman introduces the concept of scientific modelling. A model consists of a system of rules, often based partly on observed behaviour and partly on mathematics. Rules based on observations are usually known as empirical laws and rules based on mathematics are usually known as theorems. In combination laws and theorems can be used as a model, and to predict some unmeasured property, or the future state, of a system. In a model measured data are used as parameters, inputs that describe the current state of the system. These parameters can range from the velocity and pitch of the bend for a car cornering on a race track, to the temperature, pressure and potential between droplets in a can of paint. When predicting the weather the main parameters in the model are temperature, pressure and humidity. These allow us to make predictions about the weather. Differences in pressure over distance cause the wind to blow from high pressure to low. This is also subject to another 'force' due to the earth's rotation called the Coriolis force. This force is not a real force, in that there is nothing pushing or pulling, however as the wind blows the earth moves underneath it. The speed at which the earth moves underneath the wind depends on your latitude, and so if we treat the earth as stationary the direction of the wind appears to curl. This is the same effect that you can see if you try to draw a line from the centre of a disc to its edge while it is spinning, the pen moves in a straight line but the line it draws on the disc is curved. Using these concepts we can work out how pressure systems will move and begin to understand how weather changes with time.

The data collected is input into an extremely powerful computer which then calculates the future weather systems based on models similar to the one in this activity.

During the Weatherman activity your team was given sample data, numerical and graphical, from weather stations around the UK. This was used in conjunction with a set of rules to work out the forecast for the next two days. You then had to present this forecast; the more accurate your predictions the higher your score.

Weatherman introduces the concept of scientific modelling. A model consists of a system of rules, often based partly on observed behaviour and partly on mathematics. Rules based on observations are usually known as empirical laws and rules based on mathematics are usually known as theorems. In combination laws and theorems can be used as a model to predict some unmeasured property, or the future state, of a system. In a model measured data is used as parameters, i.e. inputs that describe the current state of the system. These parameters can range from the velocity and pitch of the bend for a car cornering on a race track, to the temperature, pressure and potential between droplets in a can of paint.

When predicting the weather the main parameters in the model are temperature, pressure and humidity. Differences in pressure over distance cause the wind to blow from high pressure to low. This is also subject to another 'force' due to the earth's rotation called the Coriolis force. This force is not a real force, in that there is nothing pushing or pulling, however as the wind blows the earth moves underneath it. The speed at which the earth moves underneath the wind depends on your latitude, and so if we treat the earth as stationary the direction of the wind appears to curl. This is the same effect that you can see if you try to draw a line from the centre of a disc to its edge while it is spinning, the pen moves in a straight line but the line it draws on the disc is curved. Using these concepts we can work out how pressure systems will move and begin to understand how weather changes with time.

In the real world, institutions such as the Met Office input collected data into an extremely powerful computer which then calculates the future weather systems based on models similar to the one in this activity. They then announce the results in the weather forecast. There are two main limits on the accuracy of the weather forecast. The first is that the models they use (and the one we use) are only approximations. In order to derive and solve the complex equations used in weather prediction it is necessary to ignore some interactions in the atmosphere. This means that the weather forecast will not always be accurate, and tends to get worse the further ahead you forecast as errors in the approximation compound. The second source of error in the weather forecast is due to lack of data. The more data input into the weather models, the more accurate they will be. Unfortunately some of the important data is difficult to collect and measure accurately. The final problem is that the simulations used to generate forecasts are extremely large and complex, taking hours to complete even on the fastest computers. The length of time taken to process these calculations increases sharply with the number of data points input, meaning that even if twice as much data were available it still couldn't be used.