We took a 3x6m gazebo into the central courtyard of the Southgate shopping centre in Bath for Saturday 26th September 9am-7pm. The main focus was an activity building a hand-held spectroscope using a specially made box and a piece of CD. The activity was manned by PhD students and academics, each usually working with 2 to 6 participants at one time. This gave the opportunity to talk about the properties of light and diffraction, at a level appropriate to the group (their age and science knowledge). The participants then used their spectroscopes to look at various household lights, laser lights and sunlight, and we discussed what they saw, and how this relates to some of our current research in optical fibres for making lasers, medical endoscopes and astronomical telescopes. There was also a short video of our fibre fabrication techniques, for those with a deeper interest, and banners with some images of our research with short accessible 150-word descriptions. The banners were displayed both inside and outside the tent and some people engaged them with even if they were reluctant to do the activity.
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