The Mid Sussex STEM Challenge has returned for 2024-2025 and the launch took place on Friday, November 8.
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00:00I am Professor Stephen Wilkins. I'm a Professor of Astronomy and Public Engagement at the
00:04University of Sussex. There I teach people, I do research and I help them in the department.
00:10So one of the big projects that I work on is the James Webb Space Telescope. This is our most
00:14advanced facility for studying the universe. We use it to study everything from the outskirts
00:19of our own solar system, so planets like Jupiter and Neptune, all the way to finding the most
00:23distant galaxies in the universe. What do you think of the project that the students have got
00:27today? It's a fantastic project this year. They've done drones before but technology has moved so
00:33quickly that it's really relevant again. If you think about things like the James Webb Space
00:37Telescope, it is like a big giant drone in space, right? We're not near it, it's taking images and
00:43it's sending them back to us and we're having to control it here. So fundamentally it's a really
00:46similar technology but we're also seeing drones used more and more in our day-to-day life.
00:51Things like, you know, delivering blood very rapidly, things like taking images of disaster sites
00:57and maybe in the future doing just simple deliveries to your dog. So our society, we are
01:03here today because of science, right? This allows us to live longer, healthier lives, allows us to
01:09avoid really dangerous work. You know, technology has really transformed, you know, our society.
01:16But also I think, you know, just learning about how the universe works is incredibly exciting and
01:21interesting. You can just enjoy learning things and I think STEM subjects are, you know, a way of
01:26doing that. So it has all these, you know, tangible benefits to our society but it's also fun.