Open Days March 2007 & 2009

For National Science Week and Brain Awareness Week in 2007 & 2009 the SPMMRC opened it doors to the general public.

The visit included a demonstration to explain the basics of how MRI works, a chance to play tug-of-war with a 3 T magnet (which is about 140,000 times stronger than the earth's magnetic field), and a chance to see some human imaging in progress.

The events wer run by about 15 members of the SPMMRC and collaborators, and attracted about 90 visitors of a wide range of ages and backgrounds.

Visitors try to 'Guess what it is' from some MRI scans of fruit (nearest one is a pomegranate!)

Dr Paul Glover explains what magnets and resonance have to do with Magnetic Resonance Imaging (MRI)

A few minutes earlier these visitors were playing 'Tug of war' with our old 3T magnet. Now Dr Matt Brookes is explaining why it is almost equally difficult to pull this non magnetic aluminium sheet out of the magnet