Science and Innovation Quiz Night!

What do you get when you invite a bunch of science friendly people, add some quirky yet challenging quiz questions, and some social lubricant?  Well a Science and Innovation Quiz Night of course!

So on Friday the 13th (yes, you read correctly – which also happened to be last Friday, August 13, 2010), I hosted the first of what will hopefully be several interesting evenings of science fun at the Queen and Albert Pub (a.k.a.: The Q&A) within the British High Commission (without a hitch I might add 😉 ).  We gathered our science team from across the country, and some fantastic science contacts from across Ottawa, and threw a science quiz/networking event!

Team S&I Canada: From left to right: Paolo Marcazzan, Gill Wallace, Nicolina Ferrella, Shiva Amiri, Nicole Arbour, Claire Hastings

Photo by Frank Wimart

So how does a Science Quiz/Networking event unfold you ask (imagine – science quiz meets speed dating)? Well, it goes something like this:

2 -Provide social lubricant (PIMMS, beer, wine, etc!)

Shiva making PIMMS

3 – Assign each individual with numbers from 1-6, which they hold onto as identifiers throughout the evening
4 – Assign team numbers to the tables (the furniture itself)
5 – Put together 5 rounds (with great thanks to Allan Gobey, our fantastic Quizmaster for the evening!):

• ID the giant microbe (Photo Round)
• ID the periodic table element from the obscure clue
• ID the vaguely science related song titles and artists (music round)
• ID the real &/or fictional scientist (photo round)
• ID the obscure computer languages from equally obscure clues

6 – Award goofy prizes for each round.

Giantmicrobes for the winners!

7 – Between each round use dice to determine 3 random people who will switch to the next table thus mixing it up!

You can see more of our quiz night photos on our Flickr site (Photos are courtesy of Frank Wimart – our chief photographer for the evenings events)!

We got an excellent turn out with people from many different science based departments and agencies, some industry participants as well as some academics! Feel free to play “identify your favorite Ottawa science folks” within our photo album.

With our great group of enthusiastic participants, we made our way through 5 rather challenging rounds,  with our fantastic quiz master (Allan Gobey), leading the way.

Our Quizmaster – Allan Gobey

Overall I’d say the evening was a success, it was even written up in the Chatter House column of Embassy Magazine (see page 2)!  To get a clearer picture you’d have to ask the participants – I may be biased after all – but if pictures say a thousand words, and all our pictures show shiny happy people, I’d say it seems likely to have been at least reasonably successful!

We had great feedback, people enthusiastically promised to attend any future events, and I’m hoping to be able to make this a regular!

The photos you see here are but a taste, and there are more photos yet to be added to the Flickr site, so be sure to return every so often for updates (I’ll try to have them all up by the end of the week!)