Background

British Science Week is an annual celebration of science, technology, engineering and maths and is the largest grassroots celebration of its type in the UK.

Its flagship event is Demo Day, which aims to inspire secondary school teachers and technicians to explore new concepts, provoke discussions and generate excitement through running science demonstrations in classrooms. To launch Demo Day 2016, Consolidated PR's Four Change team were looking for something visually spectacular.

Brief

CUNNING was invited by Consolidated PR's Four Change team to design and stage 5 visually spectacular scientific experiments for a classroom demonstration that would be broadcast live on Sky News' breakfast show, Sunrise.

CUNNING would be working with scientist and television presenter Greg Foot and a class from Bow School in East London. In addition to the breakfast TV broadcast a number of amazing photos of the experiments in action would be taken to share with press and use as part of the promotional activity.

Activation

CUNNING worked with Royal Institution - an organisation devoted to scientific education and research, based in London - to design and test a range of visually impressive experiments that would be demonstrated by Greg Foot live on breakfast TV.

These experiments had to be safe (as the pupils would be involved) as well as reliable to ensure they worked fawlessly during the live broadcast. After exploring and testing a few options, the final experiments included: a rainbow of fire, giant alcohol fuelled bottle rocket, mini table top rockets, handheld colourful flames and flash/bang bubbles.

On the morning of Monday 14th March 2016, CUNNING arrived at Bow School in East London setup the 5 experiments in one of the science classrooms, ready for the live broadcast on Sky New Sunrise. All solutions and chemicals mixed, equipment prepped and with the pupils briefed on what was to happen (as well as safety precautions) we went live - with Greg Foot running through and explaining each experiment in turn.

The highlight of the demo was the "Bottle Rocket", performed by Greg with pupil Peter McCartney (main picture) - at the Bow School in East London, to introduce Demo Day. 

Result

A live broadcast on Sky News' Sunrise breakfast show.
Coverage across a number of print and online publications.
On Thursday 17th March 2016, 600 schools throughout the UK participated in Demo Day.