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On Saturday 18th May 2019, we were delighted to welcome 61 Year 12 students from state schools across the UK. The day began with a talk about Oxford admissions given by Alexander Lawrence from the college’s Access and Outreach team. Afterwards, Mathematics tutors Dr David Seifert and Dr Tom Crawford discussed the MAT test, which…
Winner Matyl K, The Sacred Heart Language College It is evident that the video game industry is the fastest growing industry from $10 billion in 1990 to almost $135 billion in 2018. Arguably, this is a result of their ability to engage and transfix people, achieved by the emotional reward that they offer: feelings of…
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On 25th April, 58 school pupils all the way from Scotland to the South Coast of England came to St John’s to enjoy our annual Classics Study Afternoon. All of the students had entered the annual St John’s Classics & Ancient History Essay Competition, which is open to all students currently studying in Year 12…
In this final issue of Year 11 Inspire, we want you to tell us what makes a successful video game. There is a chance to win a £50 amazon gift voucher! Please follow this link for Issue 6 “What makes a successful video game? Final challenge” Easter Holiday Challenge Terms and Conditions
This week we asked you to think about the question: What would be the advantages and disadvantages of giving a video game away for free? Very well done to everyone who sent us their answers. Here are the best responses we received: Overall Winner Jay K (Greenford High School) Personally, I believe that giving video…
In the fifth edition of Year 11 Inspire, we will be thinking about the economic value of video games. We will be hearing from St John’s economics tutor, Dr Kate Doornik, about how free games such as Fortnite can be incredibly lucrative, and looking at issues surrounding copyrights. Please follow this link for Issue 5…
We are running a summer school our Year 11 Inspire Programme students on Monday 5th and Tuesday 6th August 2019. This is an excellent opportunity to see what being an Oxford student might be like! For full details, please see our flyer: If you would like to attend, please complete an application form and return it…
Some of the most popular video games contain high levels of violence – Call of Duty, Grand Theft Auto, Red Dead Redemption – to name a few. In Issue 4 “What can we learn from video games?”, we asked our students to consider whether the content of video games should be more strictly regulated. Here…
In this fourth edition of Year 11 Inspire, we will be considering what we might be able to learn from video games. We will be hearing from Oxford historian Dr Philippa Byrne about the historical significance, and discussing the role of violence in video games. We will also be challenging you to think how video…
Well done to everyone who participated in our Turtle Academy Programming Challenge as part of Year 11 Inspire’s third issue “Design your own video game”. Turtle Academy is a simple-to-use website providing free lessons in basic computer programming. Using the LOGO language, you can create amazing shapes and patterns – give it a try! Here…
In the third edition of Year 11 Inspire, you will be thinking about designing your own video game. We will be hearing from James Hyde, a games designer himself who works for Creative Assembly in Horsham, West Sussex, and using Flowlab to get some insight into how computer programmes are generated. Please follow this link…
St John’s is excited to announce the creation of a new in-depth programme aimed at highly-able, pre-GSCE state school students in the College’s link regions of Ealing and Harrow. It will launch in September 2019 for 40 teachers and 400 students at the start of Year 9 (13-year-olds) and will run until the end of…
In the second issue of Year 11 Inspire, we will be looking at how designers and developers use language to build characters and worlds inside their video games. We will be hearing from St John’s English Tutor, Professor Carolyne Larrington and Oxford Graduate in Linguistics, Maren Fichter. Please follow this link for Issue 2 “Building…
In this first issue, we will look at whether video games can be considered bad for you, and will ask the question: “Is it possible to become addicted to video games?” We will hear from former St John’s English student Dr Tom Chatfield, and there will be articles, quizzes and challenges to try. Please follow…
30 minutes a week to help get you ready for university. A warm welcome to everyone who has signed up for our Year 11 Inspire Programme! This programme aims to provide you with opportunities to pursue your academic interests, to develop your study skills, and to encourage you to become more confident in your abilities….
Well done to all of our Year 11 Inspire students, who have been battling hard in this week’s challenge: Candy Crush! How to play Candidates were asked to play Candy Crush on their devices for 15-30 minutes, then take a screenshot of their highest scores and e-mail it to inspire@sjc.ox.ac.uk. The top three contestants on…
Members of the Access and Outreach Office at St John’s College have had a brilliant start to the academic year, having either run or attended a total of 24 events both at St John’s and at schools and colleges across the linked regions of East Sussex, West Sussex, Brighton and Hove, Ealing and Harrow. Not…
On Saturday 6th October, Professor Katherine Southwood and the St John’s Access and Outreach team hosted a Theology Study Day for students from a variety of backgrounds. The Theology Study Day offered A-Level students an insight into the Theology course at the University of Oxford and focused primarily on biblical studies and religious literacy, with…
A group of students from the Sacred Heart Language College in Harrow had an exciting opportunity to explore the treasures of the college library, and try their hand at calligraphy, during a school visit day on 31st October. The interactive afternoon session, led by the College Librarian and specialist in medieval literature Dr Petra Hofmann,…
St John’s is delighted to be celebrating the first birthday of its innovative Inspire Programme. This dynamic outreach initiative is focused on non-selective state schools in our link regions of the London Boroughs of Ealing and Harrow, and consists of a carefully structured programme for students from Years 9 to 13. Over these five years,…
How to design a successful video game A message from the Editor Photo competition: video games Vote: Is video game addiction a mental disorder? Articles Computer Science Maths in video games Economics How to earn billions by giving something away for free English A good story is key History What can we learn from video…
Dr Tom Chatfield, an ex-ST John’s English student is a British writer, broadcaster and tech philosopher. He is a columnist for the BBC, international commentator and TED Global speaker, and he has worked as a writer and consultant with some of the world’s leading technology firms. See below for what Tom has to say about rewards […]
We invite any aspiring physicists to try their hand at these physics problems dealing with light, atoms and force: Estimate the number of visible photons leaving a 60W light bulb per second. How big would a sandcastle be if you made it from the same number of grains of sand as there are atoms in…
Dan is a third year maths student currently studying at St John’s. Here he talks about discovering maths at an Open Day and some of his favourite things he’s learned so far at university… Produced by Tom Crawford.
Learning a language is very much like playing a game: you need to be strategic, know how to identify what’s important and what’s not so essential. You must assess probability and take risks. Sometimes you must make do with little (your word bank, your range of structures) but you must also try to be accurate….
Few people can have escaped the phenomenal success of Fortnite: Battle Royale in the last year. Launched in late 2017, the game had achieved 125 million players by June 2018 and is expected to make over $3 billion in sales this year alone. While creativity and technology are essential to the success of a video…
Test your engineering knowledge with these questions from Professor Ian Sobey, Engineering tutor at St John’s. Energy Recovery from the Tides Click here for the answer sheet. Teachers, we want to hear from you too – if you want to get involved and set some questions of your own, email inspire@sjc.ox.ac.uk.
We invite any aspiring physicists to try their hand at these physics problems dealing with the concepts of momentum and energy: Martial arts such as Judo, Aikido and Japanese Jiu Jitsu teach dynamic throws. These are explained to students as redirecting their attacker’s momentum. Can you explain this by separately considering the linear motion of…
As fellow for Access and Admissions at St John’s College, I am delighted to welcome you to the launch of Inspire Digital. This term, we would like you to join our team of Oxford academics, subject specialists and industry professionals to help answer the question ‘How to design a successful video game’. Many of you…
Test out your Chemistry (and detective) skills with this conundrum from St John’s Chemistry Tutor Professor Richard Compton and his research group. Q: In some movies, the crime scene investigators spray chemicals to find traces of blood even if most of them have been cleaned or removed. Fluorescent blue light is normally shown in the place with…
Put your knowledge of Chemistry to the test with these history-themed questions from St John’s Chemistry Tutor Professor Richard Compton and his research group. Q: The Ashmolean Museum in Oxford is one of the renowned museums owned by Oxford University. Here you can see galleries full of paintings and sculptures made of white marble or blackened bronze, from…
Test your chemistry knowledge with these kitchen-themed questions from St John’s Chemistry Tutor Professor Richard Compton and his research group. Q: How radioactive is a banana? Click here for the answer. Q: What is the main process happening when cooking or frying fish? And what other method, without applying heat, would give a decent meal? Click…
Designing an immersive world is all about getting the details right. In a video game, the world consists of a number of elements, including the visual space, the characters that navigate it and the soundscape (music, sound effects and speech). It is in the finer details of these elements that the most immersive and fascinating…
Diamor is a first year maths student currently studying at St John’s. Here he talks about his passion for numbers and some of his favourite things he’s learned so far at university… Produced by Tom Crawford.
Leo is a second year maths student currently studying at St John’s. Here he talks about when he discovered his interest in maths and some of his favourite things he’s learned so far at university… Produced by Tom Crawford.
Try your hand at some physics problems based on gravity set by St John’s Physics tutor Professor Tony Weidberg… Q: Many proposals have been made for a human powered helicopter. Consider the case of such a machine with a rotor 10 metres in diameter. Could a human create enough power to overcome gravity? The density…
Try your hand at some physics problems based on heating and cooling set by St John’s Physics tutor Professor Tony Weidberg… Q: You want to heat a cold room using a simple electric bar heater. This consists of one conducting wire connected to the mains via a plug. In order to maximise the power, should you…
St John’s Physics Tutor Professor Tony Weidberg loves a good cup of tea, so why not make yourself a brew and have a go at his physics brainteasers… Q: At the interval during a football world cup game, some people watching at home make a cup of tea using electric kettles. Make a reasoned order of…
Viscosity is a property of a fluid on the molecular scale and is a measure of the strength of the internal friction between fluid particles. What this means in practice is that the thicker and stickier the fluid, the higher its viscosity. The task that you have been set by St John’s Maths Tutor Dr…
Test your chemistry knowledge with these brainteasers from St John’s Chemistry Tutor Professor Richard Compton and his research group. Q: How could you charge your phone using lemons as the energy source? Click here for the answer. Q: How can you measure the size of a molecule? Click here for the answer. Q: Can you estimate the minimum mass of…
Bubbles are undoubtedly great fun, but do you know the chemistry behind some of their most famous behaviours? See if you can answer the questions below from St John’s Chemistry Tutor Professor Richard Compton and his research group. Q: There are plenty of videos online where people trigger explosions by adding Mentos to Coke. How…
Have a go at the questions below relating to glass courtesy of St John’s Chemistry Tutor Professor Richard Compton and his research group. Q: How long does it take for glass to flow appreciably? Click here for the answer. Q: Linking science and art, how could people many years ago create the stained glass windows seen in cathedrals and churches?…
In order to predict how chemicals might interact with each other, chemists must get a good understanding of the 3D shapes of molecules. A great way to do this is to study their symmetry. If you can imagine rotating a molecule (or any 3D object) without changing the way it looks, you have identified some…
Turtle Academy is a simple-to-use website providing free lessons in basic computer programming. Using the LOGO language you can create amazing shapes and patterns in next to no time – give it a try and see what you can come up with!
See if you can outrun the lions and solve this puzzle from St John’s Maths Tutor Dr David Seifert… Imagine the following two-player video game. One player takes the role of a moody circus lion, the other plays its nimble tamer. Both players are confined to the circus arena, which has unit radius, and we…
If you fancy yourself as a Tetris whizz, try your hand at this puzzle set by St John’s Maths Tutor Dr David Seifert… One of the most successful video games of all time is Tetris. There are seven different Tetris pieces: the long piece, the square, the T-piece, two L-pieces and two Z-pieces. Each piece…
Despite a recent classification from the World Health Organisation, there remains large disagreement in the scientific community about whether or not video game addiction is actually a mental disorder. Read some of the resources below to form your own opinion and then cast your vote! I was a games addict – The Guardian Gaming addiction…
Enter our photo competition on the theme of ‘Video Games’ to be in with a chance of winning a St John’s goodie bag and to have your photo published online with the next issue of the Inspire Magazine. Entries can be photographs or short (<10 seconds) videos related to the theme of ‘Video Games’ –…
