Directions for Astronomy on Tap Speakers

The speakers are the main draw for the Astronomy on Tap events.

General Responsibilities

• Prepare and present some astronomy-related talk to the public audience
• Pick a title and send it to Cameron way in advance of the talk for advertising and poster creation

Topic Choice/Title Talk Preparation

I recommend you prepare your presentation as though you are explaining an astronomical topic to someone seated next to you on an airplane with no background in science. When choosing a topic for a lecture, make sure it is a subject that intrigues you, a subject that will potentially intrigue a layperson, and it is a topic on which you are knowledgeable. Oftentimes the best topics are not related to your own research. I usually try to give the audience one major takeaway out of the whole talk. We request a title (not an abstract) for your talk at the beginning of the semester (June or December) so we can sufficiently advertise your event and create posters for it. Please choose a talk title that laypeople will be able to understand, nothing too jargony or cryptic. Also, shorter is better for talk titles. You can see a list of previous talk titles on our PastEvents page if you scroll through and click on the Astronomy On Tap links.

Audience

We anticipate anywhere from 100-150 attendees, which is the capacity of the venue. Since it is near the beginning of the evening, there probably won't be too many drunk people present, but some people (even you!) may be tipsy. Don't worry too much--just have fun. The audience came to enjoy a drink and hear some science, so the format is pretty forgiving. You're also allowed to curse. This is a bar and these people are adults. Just use good judgement, as you are representing your institutions and our field.

Drinking

Drinking alcohol is encouraged for both the speaker and the audience. We now have a deal with management that you will get 2 free drink tokens to use on beers throughout the night. Unfortunately, these can only be used for beer, wine, and well drinks, not super fancy cocktails, but you can get whatever beer you want! Enjoy your drink(s) and your talk, but don't turn this into an episode of Drunk History. Or do, but no vomiting. I don't want to clean that up.

Resources

There is an A/V system with a standard HDMI input port so you can plug in your laptop directly to it. We also have a Mac miniport to HDMI port dongle available for Apple laptops purchased in the last ~5 years. If you don't have a laptop that works with either of those, please contact Cameron directly. The A/V system feeds to six big screen TVs mounted on the walls around the bar, so everyone should be able to see what you're displaying. Using slides on the TVs will assure that people stay engaged through your talk, but I guess it is possible to do it all by hand. Because the TVs are NOT big projection units, only use big text to assure people can read it. Plus, you want to minimize text on slides anyway--this is a bar after all. No chalkboards/whiteboards available. There is a wired microphone at the front of the beer hall that is wired into the speakers throughout the hall to assure everyone can hear you, so you needn't shout, but make sure you speak loudly into the microphone so you are heard. Unfortunately, there is no real wifi in the bar, so download content to your computer beforehand. Furthermore, it can sometimes be difficult to play sound through your laptop to the speakers, but if you need to do this, please contact Cameron beforehand to assure the system is working for this. These talks will not be recorded, but there may be occasional photographs taken for posterity.

Talk Duration

Prepare to talk for about 10-15 minutes, and we'll take a few questions at the end making the entire talk slot for 15-20 minutes. It's all pretty fluid, but 15 minutes appears to be a maximum amount of time that people want to listen to someone talk in a bar. If you go over that, you risk people just ignoring you. You can tell as people start to lose interest with time, as the ambient noise in the bar increases with time as people stop paying attention. When people ask questions, be sure to repeat the question into the microphone so everyone else can hear it before answering it.

Arriving/Setup

The talks start at 7:30, so please arrive by 6:45 to assure we can get your talk working with their A/V system. This will also give you a chance to order a drink and relax a little before everyone arrives.

Other Notes

The purpose of these events is to educate the public to be more aware and appreciative of the science around them. Please refrain from overtly injecting politics into the talk, particularly by denigrating specific politicians or groups as it can interfere with our ability as scientists to educate people. In fact, injecting politics into the talk can turn some audience members off to the scientific enterprise entirely, when these are precisely the people we need to be reaching. Please just use your best judgement in keeping your talk for a wide audience.

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