Dr Hal comes up Trumps!
Dr Hal Sosaboswki, a Principal Lecturer at the University of Brighton, has been awarded £60,000 in funding to commercialise his novel approach for children to learn about chemistry.
Did you know that aluminium has a melting point of 660 centigrade? Or that helium was discovered in 1868? Compare these with carbon which has a melting point of 3,550 centigrade and was discovered around one million years BC!
These facts and many more like them form part of the Periodic Table which is a framework used by chemists to classify and compare chemical behaviour. They are also four of several hundred facts contained in ‘Dr Hal’s Chemistry Trumps’ cards, the brainchild of “Dr Hal”, Principal Lecturer at the School of Pharmacy and Biomolecular Sciences at the University of Brighton.
Dr Hal is also the founder of Stax-o-facts Ltd, a company which currently sells Chemistry Trumps but has far more ambitious plans. With the support of the Gatwick Diamond Enterprise Hub, Dr Hal has been awarded a Finance South East Commercialisation Fund loan of £60,000 to expand the business.
Dr Hal devised the Chemistry Trumps card game whilst working on a chemistry outreach programme into the local community. A novel combination of education and entertainment designed to “get schoolchildren fired-up about chemistry,” Dr Hal’s games are based on the popular Top Trumps format.
“Children are naturally inquisitive, so if we capture their interest through games such as Trumps, they will tend to explore the subject area further, and are more amenable to other related facts and information,” explained Dr Hal, who is also an evangelist of chemistry for children through fun TV programmes like the Ministry of Mayhem, Bright Sparks, Prove IT! and Tricky TV, and his live shows, such as The Bigger Bang! show.
He added: “Our Trumps games are camouflaged learning and are a very effective way of delivering bite sized pieces of information to children in a fun and interactive way.”
Dr Hal’s Trumps are designed for children between the ages of 8 and 15, but also appeal to teachers and parents who want their children to learn whilst enabling them to have fun at the same time.
Chemistry Trumps won the University of Brighton Innovation Award in 2003 and Dr Hal subsequently worked with the University’s Business Services team to bring the product to market. Selling several thousand packs, this convinced Dr Hal that the game had real market potential.
With a business plan in place, the next step was to secure funding for the product.
Finance South East provided advice and asked Colin Hayhurst, Gatwick Diamond Enterprise Hub Portfolio Manager, to support Dr Hal. The Enterprise Hub helped Dr Hal refine his business plan and financial model, supported him in selecting his branding and design partners and networked him with other entrepreneurs. Dr Hal is now poised to launch new games - initially Chemistry, Physics and Biology Trumps - and penetrate new sales channels.
Colin Hayhurst said: “Hal Sosabowski is a natural entrepreneur and passionate communicator on educational issues. It quickly became apparent that there was great potential to build a business around the “Dr Hal” brand, starting with his Trumps game. So, we raised the bar for Dr Hal, and each time we did, Hal jumped over it. This is a great example of how education and enterprise can come together to support a promising business and increase learning.”
This year, Dr Hal’s Bigger Bang! show, Bigger Bang III – A Fistful of Test Tubes, will be at the Brighton Dome on Wednesday 10th December – see www.thebiggerbang.co.uk or tickets from the Brighton Dome www.brightondome.org
Contact: Ally Charles
Email: allycharles@seeda.co.uk
Publish Date: 21st October 2008
