While she was at NPL to discuss TeenTech, an initiative she has developed to give teenagers hands on experience of real-world engineering and science.

Happy Potter Ceramics were featured in Woman’s Weekly this week, showing you how to make your own Jubilee commemorative teapot for your own street & Jubilee parties!

A collage of a walk in the park by Deon Scheppel – showing the many seasons in one day that we have experienced with the poor weather lately!

The wall of fame in Teddington Studios – past and present stars that have recorded TV shows here in Teddington. Photo: Ian McGraw.

Vince Cable & team campaigning & handing out balloons on Teddington High Street before the recent elections. Photo: SirSmartin.

“Swan and Statue – an hour before sunset. Altered slightly to give it a moonlit feel”. Diana Fountain is again under scaffolding for repairs. The current drought might also lead to the fountain being switched off alongside various water features in other Royal Parks. Photo (c): 4orty7even

“Romance” a moment captured at the station by gwingwyn.

On 21st and 22nd of April 2012, everyone from the local community (including non-members) are welcome to help celebrate the centenary and join in the fun during a special open weekend.

On Saturday 12-4pm there will be a mini sports tournament for teams of 6-10 players and competing in tennis, bowls, football, rounders and hockey – all followed by prize-giving BBQ and bar, all in the salubrious grounds overlooked by historic Bushy House.

On Sunday 9:30am-1:30pm there is a ‘Marathon Breakfast’ with kids activities followed by a fun-run or orienteering course. Email pavilion@nplsc.co.uk to enter your team.

Admission is free across the whole weekend and no registration is required to visit. The entrance to the club is on the corner of Queens Road and Park Lane. Dogs are not allowed on the sports ground.

The historic club was originally the Sports and Social Club of the NPL and other companies based on the site but now has open membership for all.

As well as the original team room, the clubhouse’s facilities now include Sky Sports HD on several TVs, free WiFi, several function rooms, PA system, pool table, snooker room and outside a bowling green, grass & astroturf tennis courts, table tennis courts and open grass areas for football, hockey, cricket, volley ball, rounders and archery.

A recent renovation is now being extended to include new changing rooms and any donations or sponsorship from private or corporations is welcome.

The NPL’s primary objective is to improve the accuracy of measurements and support UK businesses. It does so by employing world-class scientists – many of whom had an exhausting but enjoyable day of hand-gesturing and translating complicated processes into layman’s terms for the visiting public!

Various antenna and acoustic testing chambers were the most visually recognisable experiment areas. The liquid-nitrogen produced ice-cream was as popular as ever, earning the crowd a chance to rest their brains before they continued their educational tour.

Elsewhere displays and equipment showed NPL’s work in many scientific fields in including realistic & dynamic holograms, biometric recognition methods, nanotechnology, neutron measurement, energy-efficient lighting, fuel cell technology and energy harvesting (to name but a few!).

One innocuous-looking room holds the atomic clock and bank of servers and devices that pump out the time signal that calibrates over a million radio-controlled clocks in the UK. A secure room in another lab holds the UK’s copy of the universal Kilogram weight – one of the seven base units of the International System of units (SI).

Although there were a multitude of labs open to the public with interesting and thought-provoking displays and experiments, some remained closed and only the extraordinary name plates on the outside hinted at what lay beyond. Our favourites were: Strontium Optical Lattice Clock, Time Transfer, Creep of Metals, Acoustal Wedge Storage and of course the unforgettable “Multifunctional Materials through to F8L21 Multiferroics and Spintronics”.

Proudly displayed in the main reception are many various accolades and awards that the centre and staff have received over the years and some unique memorabilia including Alan Turing’s work card and some punch cards from the ACE (Automatic Computing Engine) – one of the world’s first electronic stored-program computers. Also if you ever wondered how long a piece of string is, it’s actually 319.442mm.

More pics available here and from NPL’s official stream.

Recent Open Days have proved to be so popular that they may now be held every two years.

This innovative opera company have previously brought high quality opera to audiences at the Richmond Theatre and the Menuhin Hall in Cobham. At the Landmark they will be staging a unique evening of opera, accompanied by the acclaimed orchestra Musica Poetica London.

The unusual double-bill of early opera classics will include Purcell’s hauntingly beautiful ‘Dido and Aeneas’ and highlights of Mozart’s final work ‘La clemenza di Tito’.

If you have visited the newly opened Langdon-Down museum and marvelled at the Victorian Normansfield Theatre, you can experience it as it will have looked in its hey-day at several performances over the coming months.

Carmen will be performed here this weekend on the 18th/19th February 2012. Also back by popular demand, the Paper Moon Theatre Company proudly present another trip down memory lane into the wonderful world of traditional Victorian Music Hall that includes a mélange of song, dance, magic and laughter (March 17th).

‘I Do Believe’ (24th-25th March 2012) is a play with a magical twist, a piece of theatre which reveals that children still believe in fantasy and fairytale. Performed by a cast of 17 children and 3 adults and complimented by historical images and classical music, this production is a charity premiere presented by a talented original cast from the Twickenham Theatre Workshop.

Finally on the 26th of May 2012 by six amazing actors, four of whom happen to have Down’s syndrome, will be performing Shakespeare’s most famous play – Hamlet, at the Normansfield Theatre

As part of the Richmond upon Thames Libraries Charles Dickens 2012 bicentenary celebrations, Teddington Library will be hosting an evening with author Essie Fox on Wednesday 25th April 2012 (6-7pm).

Essie’s book ‘The Somnambulist’ is a gothic mystery with much of the action taking place in Victorian East London – in a grand garden square, and the threatening docks, as well as Wilton ’s music hall, a crumbling but magical theatre still in existence today. With many illustrations to give a sense of time and place, Essie’s talk will discuss the places, people, inspirations and themes that occur in her historical novel, with ample opportunity for any questions afterwards.

Teddington Theatre Club who perform at Hampton Hill Playhouse have a varied and exciting new season programme starting with “A Different Way Home” by Jimmie Chinn, a former member of TTC, from February 26th – March 3rd. The season continues with Present Laughter (Noel Coward), My Own Show (Lesley Bruce), Privates on Parade (Peter Nichols) and Women of Troy (Don Taylor).

For those more scientifically-inclined, as part of the National Science and Engineering, NPL is hosting “Improbable After Dark” on March 10th, an Ig Nobel Event “honouring achievments that first make people laugh, and then make them think” with speakers that will include many scientists and several QI ‘Elfs’.

The world-leading centre of excellence for accurate science, technology and standards will be open on Wednesday 14th March 2012 from 2-8pm. Visitors will be able to wander around some of the worlds most sophisticated and accurate measurement devices and wonder at the amazing work that goes on in the laboratories on-site in Teddington.

By the end of the day your head will be brimming with new knowledge gained from the various rooms and labs on the NPL campus and from the friendly scientists on hand to help explain their work.

The lecture theatre will be hosting short talks on a series of subjects ranging from the history of NPL to fun science talks. Throughout the day you will also have the chance to conduct your own experiments on the day proving at the very least that science is fun!

You can read about what to expect from highlights of last year’s open day. Rest assured that the liquid nitrogen ice-cream will be making an appearance again and you will be able to visit the famous reverberation and anechoic chambers used for measuring sound equipment.

Visitors are required to register in advance so that numbers are manageable.

A colourful pond in Bushy Park gardens is captured by Tim Moore during a Talk Photography meet-up.

Historical actors prepare to march in front of another great turnout for the annual Chestnut Sunday parade. More photos here.

Olympic hopeful Tim Brabants at home on the Thames at Teddington. Photo: IHG Master Classes.

Tweets from around the world are displayed on a screen in the NPL canteen to help celebrate World Measurement Day.

The Art Agency returns to the Landmark Arts Centre making good use of the sublime exhibition space.

Some local sights given the Instagram treatment, Teddington lock by aeroprofile and Lloyds by oliverdgchilds.

He had a rare visited to the NPL archives to see a highly guarded artefact of the change-over to the metric system – the metre bar that the UK received when it signed the metre convention in 1875.

Teddington Rugby was featured on Sky Sports News on Sunday for their unprecedented 52 consecutive wins – quite an achievement!

If you want to see more Tedders on TV then set your recorders for Tuesday February 22nd 2-3pm in ITV & ITV HD. The home interior-decor experts from House Gift help a resident to overcome their fear of colour by choosing items for their house from in and around Teddington, particularly from the Architects Gallery and Eel Pie Island.

Elsewhere recent filming at Teddington Studios has recently included a new series of Alan Carr’s Chatty Man.

This years’ challenge with the biggest and best rocket challenge so far. There are separate competitions for schools and other teams to bring their rockets and launchers along to compete. There are rumours that the world’s largest water rocket will make an appearance on the day!

All interested parties are welcome to participate or spectate on the day (general spectators evening only). The schools-only competition will happen during the afternoon and the evening session is open to all to join the ‘just turn up’ workshops. You don’t even need to build your own rockets beforehand.

To celebrate the 50th anniversary of the first person in space, an eggstra egg-based payload challenge has been added to this years events. Challenges were initially based purely on distance and altitude, but more recently require a skill-full combination of landing accuracy (in a zone about 65m from launch position) with time of flight.

Highlights of the 2010 event:

.

Registration is now open for this event and there are only 45 launch bays available – book early to avoid disappointment. If you have any questions, email waterrockets@npl.co.uk.

The NPL Water Rocket Challenge has been running since 2003 with over 400 teams of six having participated. It has raised over £10,000 for charity. The enthusiasm for this event is spreading! The team at NPL have helped other organisations setup similar events including the Wales Water Rocket Challenge and at the Cheltenham Science Festival.

[Update] Video highlights of this year’s challenge

NPL Academy gives GCSE students a real taster of work at the NPL. This Academy was introduced in 2008 to give GCSE students and A Level students a structured opportunity to get the most out of a week’s worth of work experience at one of the UK’s leading scientific establishments.

The Academy is validated by Richmond Education Business Partnership and the scheme has also won awards (Institute for Education Business Excellence, Business in the Community) – some participants return to NPL as university summer vacation workers and GAP (General Activities Programme) placements.

Typically 30-35 students are accepted but competition for these places is intense – usually averaging about 4 applicants per place. The deadline for applying is the 31st of January 2011.

NPL also holds an annual competition for schools or independent teams to create their own science film – participants have the chance to win £500 for their school (£300 for other teams).

Registration for the 2011 event will open shortly but fear not, you will have until September to submit the first cut of your film.

Entries from the 2010 competition can be seen here:

.

Elsewhere the more grown-up scientists at NPL have been working hard on many projects including performance-monitoring magnetic nano-hedgehogs, NPL’s first iPhone App and is part of a consortium that helped develop the Megaframe Imager – capable of capturing up to a staggering million frames per second!

This year as well as themed musical fireworks display itself, the evening will also include live music, beer festival (real ales & cider), BBQ and more.

Photo: Nigel Jennett (taken at 2009 event)

This event always draws a huge crowd – you can buy tickets in advance for a discounted price (available now) or on the door on the night. Gates open at 6pm, fireworks start at 7:30pm.

Tickets are available from NPL Sports Club pavilion bar:

.