A group of 50 Year 10s visited Queen’s University Belfast to have a Miniversity visit. Starting their day with a unique and exciting listening experience in the Sonic Arts Centre and moving on into a tour of QUBs state of the art Computer Science building and finishing the morning with two other tours of the Library and the Physical Education Centre.
The buffet lunch provided by Queen’s was very well received by the pupils. A great day was had by all and Wellington College are very appreciative of the time Queen’s staff invested to make this a wonderful experience for our Year 10s
Wellington College Student Reports of the visit:
Over careers week Mr O’Hara and Mr Lemon organised a trip around the Queens University Campus for Year 10 pupils to get a Taste of what it is like, before our big GCSE day! 50 pupils in total were invited to go on the trip leaving at 9:15am on a bus and coming back at 2pm. We arrived at the Sonic Arts Research centre at 9:30am and got a warm welcome on our arrival from Melissa Grant.
The lab was truly breath-taking there were a total of 48 speakers spread out among the room 2 of which were the main speakers, there were even some under our own very feet! The floor was a metal grid which would give anyone butterflies in their stomach. The floor was made out of a metal grid to let the sound waves bounce down into the basement and back up to enhance the experience. We heard two outstanding pieces of music specifically made for the uniqueness of the room. The first one was a mixture of toy’s noises overlapped along with other special effects to make the piece work among the room. The second piece was a mixture of generic everyday sounds such as doors creaking and water dripping. These two pieces were made by a past student at the Sonic Lab, Queens University. They were truly fantastic.
Next at 10:45am we moved on to the Computer Science Building where we were given a tour of the recently built building. There were very odd chairs in the office and a lab with 50 Alienware gaming computers there were two labs in total the second was even bigger than the first which was mind blowing considering the first one was massive. It was really interesting seeing the environment in which the students work. The walls throughout the building were extraordinary and very unique. It was amazing!
At 11:30am we moved on to the main library for all the students to use for free. The library was massive with many floors and thousands upon thousands of books for students to use for revision. There was a room for the amazing book writer from Northern Ireland C.S Lewis with a replica door from the book. After we headed over to the sports facilities with a swimming pool, tennis courts, squash courts and many more.
At 12:30pm we had amazing lunch in the Great Hall with a range of different food such as burgers, sandwiches and even a vegetarian option.
Thank you to all the staff and workers involved in this amazing trip. It was truly amazing and one to remember.
By Toby
Sonic Lab
We started off by going into the sonic lab which is an amazing lab which has acoustically transparent floors that are shaped as metal grid to let the sound through without it getting trapped. The sonic lab contains 48 loud speakers that are strategically placed around the room to give a special effect that the sound is everywhere.
Computer Science Building
It is newly built and is full of colours around the outside. There is a really nice design and layout with in it.
We had a lovely tour around the pe center and library and finished with a lovely lunch.
By Max
To start off we went to the SARC it was an amazing facility the acoustics were of high quality as was the equipment and demo that was played was really good giving the impression that students are taught by well trained teachers it made me consider a career in music and sound and is something to think about while making my choices. Next we went to the computer science building we all appreciated the layout of the foyer and found the environment very relaxed and welcoming the students we spoke to seemed like they genuinely loved the course they were doing and again the facilities were incredible. We then went to the library which had a lot of helpful resources and finally went to the PEC which was had a lot of amazing equipment and had a great environment for the students to work out in. overall I really enjoyed the trip and even though at this current moment I am not planning on going it would be a highly successful choice for anyone.
By Rosie
The tour around Queens University was very helpful and insightful. It made me think about careers that I’ve never considered before such as working with sound and ICT. The facilities were amazing and it was a very relaxed environment. The sonic arts research centre was phenomenal, the speakers and the lights worked very well together and the pieces that we were shown were spectacular. I found myself looking around to find where the sound was coming from. The Computer science building was so futuristic yet very relaxed. The tour guides were extremely helpful and answered all of our questions in great detail. The library seemed to have fantastic resources that would help with studying. The PEC allows you to do lots of different sports from swimming to basketball to squash. It also had the largest climbing walls in the UK. This experience really influenced me to try and get into university and all the people were so friendly.
By Poppy
On Thursday the 23rd of January 50 year 10 pupils visited Queens University Belfast where we got to visit the SARC labs, Computer science building, sports centre and the library. We were given quite informative talk about each place. The SARC lab was a special room designed to project sound and had 48 speakers all positioned strategically around the room. We got to hear some demonstrations from past students who had recorded some immersive compositions. It also had a metal grid for the floor which helped the sound travel. Next we moved onto the computer science building for a tour around. The building is very modern and its design is based off of Microsoft and googles’ offices. We were split into 2 groups of 25 and were spoken to about the different degrees you can take and also had a tour around the building. Then we visited the library and PEC (sports centre) briefly as there was students studying. Overall, I enjoyed this trip because it gave me an insight on what university is actually like and helped me think about my future and career.
By Teejay
