Building for the Future
The Oxford University BabyLab is having some new playrooms built! The playrooms are on the ground floor, and will make up part of the Oxford Centre for Developmental Science, due to be completed during the Summer of 2010. We'll let you in on a sneak preview of the new spaces, and how the building work is progressing.
26 August 2010
Suzy Styles
| More building work - it's time to start installing equipment! |
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 Here you can see our new LED monitor being installed on a lift. The LED backlight technology means that there's much less electro-magnetic noise generated by the screen. So even thought the screen is very big, it shouldn't interefere with our brain-wave recordings.The lift concealed behind the screen will allow us to alter the height of the screen so that it is equally good for working with a small infant on a parent's lap - and for a tall adult watching the screen on their own. It's a good job the builders have covered up our precious spongy floor while they work - we would hate to see it get damaged when we are so close to moving into these rooms! |
 Here's how our reception looks, now that it is furnished. Neat isn't it! |
 And on the wall of the reception area, we can use these two remote signs to see what's going on in our two new playrooms.This way, we will always be able to find out if a playroom is busy, and what stage of the visit our colleagues are up to without disturbing the family who is visiting. |
01 August 2010
Suzy Styles
The green line leads down into a green corridor, from which it leads into the Elizabeth Bates Room. This meeting room now looks quite neat in its final paint job, with a projector screen installed on the end wall. Here you can see the control room, which sits between the two new BabyLab playrooms. When all of our computers are connected, researchers will be able to monitor behaviour in both of the playrooms simultaneously. Out in the BabyLab Reception, we now have space for a small kitchenette, so we will be able to make tea for our visitors. And just around the corner, we have a separate washing area for rinsing out caps and EEG materials. It's going to be great having these two sinks separate, so we won't have to worry about getting food in our equipment - or getting salty water in our food!
Another update from the building project at the Oxford BabyLab, part of the Centre for Developmental Science
Here you can see BabyLab researchers Mihaela Duta & Adam Roberts at the end of the main corridor of the Centre, in which the new BabyLab playrooms are located.
Mihaela is following a 'tram track' from the pink corridor into the next reception area.
Here's a closeup of the 'tram tracks' which will help visitors to the Centre to find their way in the Centre.
The tracks are part of the carpet, and we're hoping that our youngest visitors will find it fun to follow the different colours on their way to different rooms.
16 July 2010
Suzy Styles
| It's handover day: The main building work has been completed on the new spaces in the Centre for Developmental Science. Furniture is yet to be delivered, and monitors put in place. But the spaces we will be moving into are now recognisable, and they look great! |
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The BabyLab Reception Area is finished - with a fantastic new coat of paint. Now all we have to wait for is our new furniture to arrive! This is where parents will come with their infants and toddlers, for their visits to the Babylab, on the way to our specially designed playrooms. |
This is the Green Playroom, with all of the building work finished - this is one of two identical playrooms with electrical shielding concealed within the walls (In some of the previous photographs, you can see the metal sheilding under construction). The grey wall at the front of the playroom will hold a large monitor, with all of the cables hidden out of sight. Inside the booth, everything is painted grey, so that children will be able to concentrate on the monitor, while they sit with a parent The curtains can divide off the playroom from the booth, so that toddlers won't be distracted by any toys of furniture outside. |
Have a look at our fabulous spongy floor. It's really soft, comfortable to play on, and easy to keep clean. This flooring will be a great advantage in play sessions where BabyLab staff sit on the floor with our infant visitors. |
And here is the finished Sleep Room with curtains, paint and furniture. Behind the curtain, we have room for a comfy chair and a cot. Outside the curtain, there's a spot for someone to read or work, meaning that we can use this room for a variety of purposes. We're all very happy to see these spaces taking shape - it may take us a while to move in to the new rooms, but we're looking forward to moving in soon! |
07 June 2010
Suzy Styles
| Another trip today to the BabyLab construction sites
in the Oxford Centre for Developmental Science. The new Centre will bringing
together a number of different developmental research groups within the
University of Oxford. |
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 In this photograph you can see the Elizabeth Bates Room - named after
the internationally recognized expert in brain organization and language
learning. The room will be used by the whole Centre as a meeting room and venue
for small seminars. |
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In the next photo, you can see Beata Stepniak, a BabyLab
researcher, exploring one of our new playrooms. Beata’s work investigates
whether toddlers are more familiar with cartoons or photographs of real
objects, and how that interacts with word learning.
The building work in playrooms is nearing completion now, and this photo shows the shape of room, from the doorway, where you can see the equipment screens. Notice how the roof is still bare metal. This hidden metal helps us to shield the playrooms from unwanted electrical activity while we do brain wave monitoring.
02 June 2010
Suzy Styles
| A second trip to the construction site |
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 Today our reception area is looking much closer to
finished, with fully plastered walls and a first coat of paint.. With all of
the electrics hanging from the ceiling, it looks like there’s still a fair way
to go before we bring sofas and a reception desk in… |
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 Another space that’s starting to take shape is the
area which leads into our two new playrooms. Although it doesn’t look like much
now, the area (below) will become a prime space for buggy-parking.When I visited the playrooms this time, I was surprised to find neat plaster walls, and the beginnings of a partition on the back wall. The partitions at the back of the booth will hide all of our equipment from view, except for the screen we use to present pictures of animals and objects. With a partition like this, babies coming to play an on-screen game won’t be distracted by cables, switches, cameras or shadows in their field of view. The angled sides of the partition are hinged, so if we need to change or adjust any of our equipment, it’s easy to get in around the back. There are grills at the top of the partition doors, so that the back of our computer monitor doesn’t overheat in a sealed space. In the top of the next picture, you can see that the roof is made of metal plates. |
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 These metal plates makes contact throughout the walls, the floor
and ceiling, and even a specially made door, making a continuous
electromagnetic shield called a Faraday cage.This system will dampen outside sources of electrical activity, allowing us to make clean electrical recordings of brain activity inside the playroom. Last time I visited, the plates of sheet-steel had only just been installed so the building is progressing quite quickly now! |
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 We are really looking forward to seeing the whole project finished. |
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20 May 2010
Suzy Styles
| Mihaela and I took a quick trip to the construction site this morning,
to see how our new playrooms are coming along. All of the walls in the
new Centre for Developmental Science have been completed, so we can see
where our new Reception Area and Playrooms will be. It is an
interesting stage of the building work, and it has changed really
quickly since last time I visited. |
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 This space will become our new Reception Area, with a couch, toys and
magazines, and a reception desk. It doesn't look like much at the
moment, but it will become much more welcoming soon. |
 This space will become our Baby Sleep Room, for studies where we can monitor babies' brain activity while they have a brief nap. We can also look into how babies' naps are involved in the formation of memories. |
 Inside the walls of our new BabyLab Playrooms will be hidden sheets of
steel. These are important for studies where we record brain activity,
as the sheet-metal blocks out any electrical activity which might be
coming from outside. This allows us to record brain wave activity much
more cleanly, leading to more accurate measurements. Soon these metal
sheets will be covered with plaster so that our playroom will look
completely normal from the inside. |
