"The Globe of Death!"

Folks

we did our rehearsals today and well, this is going to be some show...

The BT Arena will hold around 1500 people and is expected to be full for each of the shows. They will run at 12:00 and 15:00 each day (Thurs/Fri/Sat) and will last about 25 minutes long. But if you manage to get to see it you will be astounded - I certainly was!

If you manage to come over any of the days, please make a point of popping over to me to say hello. And of course, there's a lot more than The Globe of Death to look at. There's an IYA2009 movie show running a few times per day, a Robot Wars event, plent of exhibitions from the likes of Intel etc and of course, the displays form the Young Scientists. Its incredible what these folks are presenting - I'm amazed at their ingenuity, skill and scientific knowledge at an age when all I could care about was football. But then look what happened to me

Hope to see you there.

Cheers
Dave

Forgot to mention - the shows are being filmed and will at some point be broadcast either on TV or the Web. As soon as I know, I'll post up the details.

dmcdona wrote:

at an age when all I could care about was football. But then look what happened to me

You don't care about football your a toffees fan :silly:

Best of luck with the show and I look forward to seeing it on Saturday.

I have seen the Globe of Death and I would not go into it for love nor money , but maybe for some funding for a major exhibition I have in the pipeline , or may be not , I value my life ............. best of luck Dave

Deirdre Kelleghan
PRO IFAS

First two shows went ahead today - given that we had no dress rehearsal, I think it went OK. Perhaps Phil can give you a more independent report...

Anyhow, if you can come over to the RDS Friday or Saturday, please do. There's a lot more astro stuff going on including a planetarium, 3-D movie and lots of freebie DVD's etc.

If I can, I'll try and blag you in. PM me and I'll send you my mobile - but no promises I'm afraid

Dave

p.s. I'm now best of mates with Ray Darcy and will retell a very funny story over a pint in the future

Have to agree with Dee - you'd never see me inside the Globe of Death - it looked insanely dangerous!

Intended as a practical demonstration of Centrifugal Inertia (not a 'force'!!) and planetary orbital motion, the show kicked off with Dave and his co-host (whose name escapes me!) describing the difference between a force (gravity) and speed induced inertia and how to calculate how fast you had to be moving to overcome gravity. A ball on a string was produced to illustrate the point quite nicely... but hang on, we have an altogether bigger, louder, noiser and smokier demo just behind this curtain! Cue the Globe of Death which was rolled centre stage, into which a biker was incarcerated! The lattice-metal globe was no more than about 8 feet in diameter and this loony biker started whizzing around inside, going round and around and then up and over the top again and again - just mental! It was a really good development on the old Wall of Death attraction.

But wait... if you thought one biker doing his nut inside the globe was cool, three bikers must be better! I could not believe that they could physically squeeze three big trail bikes + riders into such a small confined space let alone get them to move without carnage! But hay, they all set off together with perfect timing and proceeded to scare the crap out of the audience by blasting around the globe together, one behind the other, with their heads no more than a few inches apart on opposite sides of the cage. Severe carnage, loss of limbs and pints of spilled blood were the only possible outcome from this act of inspired lunacy! But no, after several minutes of stunning display riding, when you were just beginning to wonder how the blazes they were going to stop without killing eachother (and showering the audience in blood and mangled body parts, they one by one came to an abrupt and perfectly executed halt to screams of enthusiastic appreciation and applause! It was a genuinely stunning performance!

Physics was never so much fun in my day!!! :silly:

Well done Dave!

Phil.

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