This is the CHaOS demonstrator website, mainly intended for our student volunteers. Click here if you were looking for our main front page.
Volunteers
Welcome to the demonstrator section of the CHaOS website, with lots of information about helping out with CHaOS events. Look on the menu below to find various pages that are useful for volunteers- but if you're new to CHaOS we recommend you start with the page for new volunteers.
CHaOS is a student society that runs fun science outreach events outside of term time. We run a number of events just before or after term in Cambridge, such "Crash, Bang, Squelch!" in National Science Week at the end of Lent Term. We also take our experiments on tour each summer, when the CHaOS roadshow visits schools and town halls around the country in July every year.
Our events are run entirely by student volunteers, based on experiments that have been built, bought and borrowed since we ran our first event at the Cambridge Science Festival in 1998. CHaOS events are funded by a number of charitable organisations- helping us out will just take some of your time. Our volunteers come from all science-related subjects (Nat Scis, Medics and Vets, Engineers, Mathmos and more) and range from first year undergraduates to final year PhD students. Some have explained science to the public before, but most of us did this for the first time at a CHaOS event!
More information
Find out more about what being a CHaOS volunteer involves through the links below - or you can contact us to ask us more.
- New volunteers
- CHaOS experiments *now with photos*
- Advice for demonstrating CHaOS experiments
- Next event: "Crash, Bang, Squelch!" 2012 (17th March/ End of Lent term, in Cambridge)
- Past event: December Roadshow 2011 (Just after Michaelmas term, Cambridgeshire)
- Past event: Summer Roadshow 2011 (July/early August, around the country)
- Other previous CHaOS events
- Life on the road: "Demonstrator Diaries"
- Top Ten Roadshow Survival Tips
- Joining the CHaOS committee
- CHaOS policy documents
- CRB checks for CHaOS Roadshow events
- Expense claims forms for CHaOS Roadshow events
Next CHaOS event: "Crash, Bang, Squelch!" (17th March 2012)
We're recruiting now for our biggest annual event, "Crash, Bang, Squelch!"- this a huge hands on science day that we run during the Cambridge Science Festival. We'll be taking over the Zoology Department in the New Museums site (right next to the whale) on Saturday 17th March 2012. We'll have lots of own exciting experiments, and we'll need lots of enthusiastic student volunteers to help demonstrate them to the public. Saturday 17th March is after the end of lectures, so you can have great fun helping out without worrying about work!
What exactly does it involve? We've got a huge number of hands-on experiments that we've designed to demonstrate interesting scientific principles. You might find yourself demonstrating how bridges stay up, why some things glow in the dark or even introducing children to Boris the skeleton. The ideas are simple, but with enthusiastic and interested demonstrators we can show children that science isn't a 'boring' subject.
You can choose to demonstrate in the morning or afternoon, and if you choose to do the whole day we'll even provide you with a free lunch (whoever said there was no such thing?). Even better, there is a free party after the event for all those who help!
I've never done anything like this before... will I be any good? No experience is necessary, and every year we have loads of people who haven't done CHaOS before. If you're a scientist (including mathmos, vets, medics, engineers, compscis,...) you already know more than enough to demonstrate. The experiments have interesting and useful descriptions to explain the science and if you are unsure you can always ask one of the friendly committee members. We'll also run several briefing sessions just before the event so you know exactly how everything will work on the day.
Sounds great! How do I sign up? Get yourself on our email list (see the New Volunteer page), and watch your inbox for a link to our sign up form . If you have any further questions, please contact us.
