User:Tre2014/Simeon Oakley

Simeon Oakley

Early life
Simeon Oakley (Also known as Sim or Simmy) was born in Woomera, Australia and grew up in Saudi Arabia on an RAF base. He has worked for a circus, designs and builds interactive exhibitions for science museums and TV, and at one point lived on a restored Thames barge.

Science Shack
Science Shack was a BBC television series screened in 2001 and 2002. It was presented by Adam Hart-Davis and produced by Leeds UK-based Screenhouse Productions. The series set out to answer science questions by performing experiments. Simeon joined the team in series 2 in which they looked into subjects such as 'Can You Fly Like A Bird?', 'Can You Walk On Water?' and 'Can You Live Underwater'.

James May's Toy Stories
Simeon has been the project manager for almost all of the 'Toy Stories' series (Excluding The Lego House and First Model Railway attempt).

In 'Airfix Spitfire', Sim and a team of students, James May and James May Sr built a Spitfire out of a large 1x1 scale version of Airfix.

In 'Plasticine Garden' with the help of the British public, they put together a garden made entirely out of Plasticine and entered it into the 2009 Chelsea Flower Show

In 'Meccano Bridge' the team built a life-sized Meccano bridge 23 metres (75 ft) and was situated in the heart of Liverpool's newly redeveloped Pier Head.

In 'Scalextric' the mission was to set a race around the site of former grand prix track Brooklands in Surrey. Very little of the track still existed so Sim had to help find ways of making the track navigate around an industrial estate and houses.

In 'The Great Train Race' they re-attempt to make attempted to build the world's longest model railway which followed an original and now unused route trains used to take from Barnstaple to Bideford (Sim was not part of this first attempt) but made it a race against the Germans with a team of train enthusiasts from Miniatur Wunderland. Sim created the 'Track-O-Matic' which was devised to be a 'faster' way of laying the track down and also designed his own modified train which had no breaks and quickly was ruined, much to Sim's amusement.

In 'Flight Club' Sim and a team from Brunel University helped build a Slingsby Swallow model plane which was launched towards Lundy, an island in the Bristol Channel.

In 'The Motorcycle Diary' Sim built (With the help of Simon McCoy) a fully functioning motorbike and side car out of Meccano. James rode it for one lap around the Isle of Man's famous TT Course with wine critic Oz Clarke as passenger.

In 'Action Man At The Speed Of Sound', Sim, along with a varying team of Rocket scientists and engineers worked to send an Action Man doll in a rocket in the hopes of making it the first toy to break the sound barrier. Along the way they faced competition by another team of engineers who planned to do the same thing with a Sindy doll.

James May's Man Lab
Sim, along with a team has helped create many strange and clever things including a kitchen made out of concrete, a remote control picnic table, a model railway to transport stuff around the 'lab' (with the later addition of a junk mail organizer) and Shoes with LED torches built in just to name a few.