10.00 am Arrived at the Laboratory which is part of Oxford University to meet Karen. She looked very glam - she said because girls at school demos don't listen if she's not wearing make-up - weird! 10.15 am Before we set off for the school, Karen showed us her baby or as she called it her STL or Single Mode Tunable Laser. Looks quite innocent doesn't it? But... Here's Karen showing us a close up of one of the lenses. The Laser kit is like a pin ball machine which bounces and reflects the light around an assault course of reflectors and lenses. 10.30 Then it was time to leave to get the school where Karen had been booked it to give two demonstrations about lasers. We thought this might involve actual lasers but this is far too dangerous! So she packed lots of things to demonstrate laser technology and off we went in a minibus. 11.00 Arrived in time to sit in the science staff area and practice a couple of the things we'll have to do in the show for Karen. Balancing a ball with a hairdryer. AKA the Bernoulli effect "not as easy as I make it look"! 11.30 Mastered it just in time to wow them all in year 8! Wondering what this has to do with lasers? We learned a lot about lasers during the talk. Karen had really prepared with a powerpoint show. Here's another of Karen's demos, a UV light and some ordinary household tonic water. It contains stuff that makes it glow under the UV - to show how lasers can be made from loads of different things. 13.00 Lunch time and the very glamorous surroundings of the main hall at the school. 14.00 Back to the grindstone with another demonstration to another group. Karen works really hard at these demos, and she has a good way with the pupils - if they talk or make any noise she's on to them really quickly. Her work with lasers will be applied to the science of combustion (burning things) to help make better more efficient engines in the future. She'll use different colours of lasers to measure exactly what chemicals are burning. To demonstrate how this works here's a couple of chemicals squirted into a flame to see what colour flame they make! Burning lithium (RED FLAME) Burning copper (GREEN FLAME) Another reason why laser science gets funding in universities is its many applications in the communications business. Sending messages via light down fibre optical cables for example has revolutionised the industry. And of course, you can't make holograms without a laser! Can you see what it is yet? We learnt LOADS about lasers today and worked hard assisting Karen. She has a great love of her subject that was really infectious - hope the kids enjoyed it as much as we did! To find out more about Karen visit the www.noisenet.ws site