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Royal Institution Christmas Lectures

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Royal Institution Christmas Lectures: 2014: Sparks Will Fly - How to Hack your Home

Royal Institution Christmas Lectures: 2014: Sparks Will Fly - How to Hack your Home: Episode 1: The Light Bulb Moment

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Factual: Science & Nature

2014: Sparks Will Fly - How to Hack your Home

Episode 1

Episode 1: The Light Bulb Moment

The Light Bulb Moment

BBC Four - Royal Institution Christmas Lectures, 2014: Sparks Will Fly - How to Hack your Home, The Light Bulb Moment

Danielle George plays a computer game on a skyscraper's windows using many light bulbs.

Danielle George looks at the light bulb to show how to hack, adapt and transform technologies found in the home to have fun and make a difference to the world.

Professor Danielle George takes three great British inventions - the light bulb, the telephone and the motor - and shows you how to hack, adapt and transform them to do extraordinary things. This is tinkering for the 21st century.

Inspired by Geordie inventor Joseph Swan, Danielle attempts to play a computer game on the windows of a skyscraper using hundreds of light bulbs. Along the way, Danielle will show the next generation how to hack, adapt and transform the technologies found in the home to have fun and make a difference to the world.

This year's Royal Institution Christmas Lectures have been inspired by the great inventors and the thousands of people playing with technology at their kitchen tables or tinkering in their garden sheds. When Joseph Swan demonstrated the first working light bulb in 1878 he could never have dreamed that in 2014 we'd be surrounded by super-bright LED screens and lights that could be controlled using mobile phones. 

In this lecture, Danielle explains how these technologies work and show how they can be adapted to help you realise your own light bulb moments. She shows how to send wireless messages using a barbecue, control a firework display with your laptop and use a torch to browse the internet.

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How to hack, adapt and transform three British inventions to do extraordinary things.

Professor Danielle George takes three British inventions - the light bulb, the telephone and the motor - and shows how to hack, adapt and transform them to do extraordinary things.

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Royal Institution Christmas Lectures

2014: Sparks Will Fly - How to Hack your Home

Episode 1: The Light Bulb Moment

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