ThatSizGirl's Blog: York Science and Innovation Grand Tour

For today's post I wanted to share my experience of the York Science and Innovation Grand Tour, after taking part of it at the weekend and having a great time. Enjoy!

What is it? From YorkGrandTour.co.uk:
Join us on our amazing tour and experience what some of the city’s innovative people, businesses and organisations have brought to the city and how they have impacted on our lives.
60 large-scale, science and innovation themed, images and messages are displayed in prime locations around the city.

When is it?
From 30 May to 31 August 2012.

It was my dad who first let me know about the York Grand Tour and so this past weekend we decided to go hunting around town and try as find as many of the images as we could. Armed with a map and information about each of the images we set of on Sunday morning (when York would be that bit quieter!) to do the tour.

The Mumbo Jumbo roller coaster displayed in Coppergate

We started in Coppergate where several images are displayed. After a fight with my camera (zoom error! zoom error! zoom error!) I resorted to using my phone to document our trip. The pictures didn't actually come out to bad I'm happy to say! The first image we came across was a picture of the Mumbo Jumbo roller coaster at Flamingo Land North Yorkshire, which holds the record for the steepest drop. I've actually seen this roller coaster up close (from the safety of the ground!) on a visit to Flamingo Land and I can confirm it's just as impressive (i.e terrifying) in real life.

The images are all about local science acheivements and innovation and a lot of the pictures are linked with a particular company or organisation, from Aviva to Nestle, Bootham School to the University of York. The images are pretty spread out so planning a route is key if you want to try and do them all in one go. We didn't do all of them in one go so we still have some left to discover, but we managed to tick off a fair few on Sunday.

The inside of a mint Aero displayed on Blake Street

After Coppergate we headed up Coney Street, to St Helen's Square and Davygate. One particular exhibit our map informed us was on Davygate took some effort to find (it was hidden round a corner) but we got there in the end! Then we visited Blake Street and Lendal before heading up to Museum Gardens. All of that was enough to warrant a tea break in Costa whilst we refuelled and planned the rest of our route. To the Bootham Bar and the Minster next, then Monk Bar. Eventually we worked our way back to the Shambles and Fossgate, where again one of the images evaded us! We've still yet to spot the Fossgate one but hopefully I'll get the chance to see it eventually. The up to Picadilly before heading home.

The way we approached the tour was to try get round as much of it as possible in one go. It's a lot of work (not the most M.E friendly of activities but we managed to fit in plenty of rest stops to give my legs a break!) and the images are quite spread out so we're leaving some of them to do another day (Micklegate and the images by the river). You don't have to do it like that, though. You can still get enjoyment out of these pictures by chancing upon them on your trip to the shops or your way home from work. It's something to share with all the family and I'm planning on dragging more family members back to get a chance to look at some of the images (particularly the member of my family interested in photography!) so try and share the experience with other people.

It's geared up for tech-lovers with Twitter hashtags for the images and QR codes to scan with your smartphone, so it's a super-interactive experience.

It was a really enjoyable day. Here's a few more of my favourite images!