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:

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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:

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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:

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Actor, adventurer and President of Dyslexia Action Charley Boorman will be joining in the fun on the day.

This family event is being arranged to help raise awareness about hidden disabilities such as dyslexia and the new It’s ME! appeal. It is open to any age group but there are only a limited number of places so you must register in advance to take part.

For more information check out their website and note that there are very clear rules about how the game is undertaken in order to break the record!

The rules include these delights:

21. One player will be chosen as “It”. The game will start when ‘It’ covers his or her eyes for a period of five minutes, as counted by an official timekeeper.

22. During these five minutes, players must seek out a hiding spot within the play area.

Perhaps players should study the nearby park’s deer to learn how to hide in greenery at a professional level.

This popular day has been running since 2003 and since then has had over 400 teams of six enter the competition. Awards were initially based on altitude and distance but now include landing accuracy combined with flight-time.

The schools event in the afternoon is fully booked, but the Open Event (for older rocket enthusiasts) which starts at 6pm still has some places available if people would like to enter a team – full instructions and registration forms are on the NPL website: www.npl.co.uk/waterrockets.

If you don’t want to enter a team then you are more than welcome to come along and spectate (entry £2 – all proceeds towards Shooting Star Hospice) – the NPL Pavilion will be providing a BBQ and serving beverages.

If you have any further water rocket-related enquiries, contact waterrockets@npl.co.uk.

[Update] Video highlights of the competition.

In the entrance hall there was a buzz of excitement from visitors young and old as they tried out the first of the interactive experiments – we were barely through the front door and we had already had our height measured by a laser height interferometer, capable of measuring length down to sub-nanometre accuracy!

The various modules were mapped out clearly and our route took through them took us on a voyage of discovery. Amongst the wondrous sights and sounds were real-time spectrograms to visualising sound, the National Standard Kilogram, Nanoanalysis (including next generation of electronic displays), airborne Nanoparticle Measurement, optical atomic clocks, 3D Optical Technology for image viewing, lasers that define the UK primary standard metre and Biometrics Identification. Guests clapped and shouted to create their own audio experiments to show the difference between the infamous reverberation and hemi-anechoic chambers.

In each lab were knowledgeable, passionate and very friendly scientists to explain their particular area of expertise – all doing their bit to explain the science and real world applications of the complex work that is undertaken at the labs.

Proudly on display in the engineering workshop was the NPL designed water-powered car that won The Gadget Show challenge hosted here – perhaps a precursor to the Bloodhound SSC project that will attempt to break the land speed record in 2011 using a supersonic car that NPL helped design!

Other labs were closed to the public but the names on their doors hinted at the unusual and delightful work undertaken behind them – our personal favourites were “Creep of Metals”, “Cryogenic Systems”, “Roundness and Profile”, “High Dew-Point Laboratory” and “Hardness Testing”.

Also on display was the history of the laboratories – dating back to 1900 where its humble beginnings grew from the grand venue of Bushy House. The visit was finished off aptly with an ice-cream made using liquid nitrogen.

NPL estimates are that approximately 700 visitors attended the day/business sessions during the day and about 1,700 turned up for the public evening opening. Many guests enjoyed themselves so much that were asking staff when the next open day would be! It should be noted that tremendous amount of work went in to creating this public day, making the labs ‘visitor-friendly’ and all at NPL’s own expense.

Although we didn’t notice any Oompa-Loompas during the visit, we certainly felt like we had won a golden ticket to be able to peak behind NPL’s doors – thanks go to all involved in making this day possible.

From the junction of Queens Road/Park Lane pedestrians can now cut through to the Coleshill gate for the first time. This new route will be open from 6:30am to 8:30pm daily. As well as being handy for general park-users, nearby cricket and rugby sports clubs will now be able to park just outside of the park wall rather than take the longer route through the park itself to use the internal car parks.

The bad news is that dogs are not allowed to be walked along this shortcut and the new car parks will fall under the newly agreed parking charges which are now in the planning permission phase.
[Update]: parking charges now dropped and dogs are allowed through this route.

Both the Conservatives and Lib-Dems opposed the car-parking charges for Richmond and Bushy Parks so along with the new third runway at Heathrow being scrapped by the new coalition government, perhaps the parking charges will get the same treatment.