Profile

Photo:

Daniel Robson

    • About Me:

      Hello! I grew up in Gateshead in North East England and it will always be home to me <3 I now live down South and work at the University of Nottingham building bits of little spacecraft! I love reading books and cooking food – even if I don’t like doing the washing up after!

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      I’m a PhD student at the University of Nottingham. This means I’ve went to secondary school, passed my GCSE’s and A-levels, then went to University and did a “degree” and now I’m at Uni again doing an extra degree on top of it!

      I get paid for my work and have to write essays, teach lessons to younger students, mark their homework and essays, and do things in the lab. I work closely with my “supervisor” who is my teacher – she is called Chantal and is from Italy and has built at least 6 satellites that have been to space and is really cool!

      My work is to try and build really small satellites called “Cube-Sats” that are built from 10cm big cubes! You can stick these together like lego to make different shaped satellites – 6 together is about the size of a shoebox or briefcase.

      In these satellites you need to put batteries and solar panels and fancy computers and lots of other little electronics. But we also want to put small biology experiments on board too! You might not know this, but being in space does lots of weird things to astronauts’ bodies – some of which can make them feel very ill 🙁 So we want to study these things inside our little satellite box to find new medicine to make astronauts and humans on Earth feel better 🙂

    • My Typical Day:

      My partner is a teacher so we get up very early! I make us both a cup of tea and breakfast then we go to work. Sometimes I can work from home and sometimes I get the train to the lab in Nottingham. I can be working by myself or with my friends and my teachers, but we have lunch together so that’s nice. Then I go home and plan what needs doing for tomorrow and watch tv!

    • What I'd do with the prize money:

      I think I would pay for me and some friends of mine to go into some nearby schools and do some cool experiments with them! We could launch small rockets, try and build little mars rovers, build practise mini satellites like the one in my photos, or try and build a lander to stop an egg smashing!

    My CV

    • Education:

      Kells Lane Primary School in Gateshead, then Dame Allan’s in Newcastle then University of Leicester and now University of Nottingham

    • Current Job:

      PhD Student – Biomedical Payload CubeSats

    • My Interview

      • What did you want to be after you left school?

        I really didn’t know and I still don’t know for sure! All I knew was I thought science and technology and space were really really cool and you could do lots of good things with them

        Were you ever in trouble at school?

        I was usually very good! But I always talked a lot so sometimes I got asked to sit on a table by myself, then the teachers would say I would still try talk to myself

        Who is your favourite singer or band?

        When I was in school I was a crazy fan of Busted and I’m still into guitars and rock music now! I actually saw Sam Fender last weekend!

        What's your favourite food?

        It’s got to be beans on toast! With cheese and sometimes spicy sauce if I’m feeling brave

        Tell us a joke.

        What do you call a boomerang that doesn’t come back? A stick!