After a 2 year absence, plans for this year’s Suffolk Show are well under way and the countdown has begun! We are very much looking forward to delighting you with a selection of cool technology, all hand-picked from the cutting edge research that we do at Suffolk’s Adastral Park.

We have 3 areas across the Suffolk Show this year! Be part of our code breaking Caesar cipher activity which will take you to each of the locations to solve the clues and a chance to win a prize!

Our amazing “Technology” marquee is back! BT, the DigiTech Centre, Innovation Martlesham members plus Festival of Suffolk will have hands on activities to challenge you and give you lots of fun too!

We are delighted to be part of the Queens Platinum Jubilee celebration area. Visit our “Heritage” marquee and travel through the journey of technology during the Queen’s 70 year reign.

Take a trip to the Armed Forces location to discover our BT Armed Forces network – did you know Openreach is one of the biggest employees of ex-military personnel?

Each of our locations aim to inspire young Suffolk Show visitors with technology and innovation and to encourage the next generation into STEM careers (science, technology, engineering and mathematics)

Enjoy the experience!

Suffolk Showground Map 2022


What can you do?!

Take part in a Ceasar Cipher quiz!
Starting at either the Heritage or Technology marquee, make your own Ceaser cipher wheel before taking part in our quiz. Security is a part of everything we do. Use your cipher to decrypt your way around the three BT locations to complete our quiz and win your completing certificate and possibly some prizes too!

Technology Marquee (Suffolk Show Grid ref D5)
Our exciting BT Research & Innovation marquee is back and again located opposite the busy Armed Forces area. A selection of hands-on activities have been planned to inspire the next generation of technologists and to showcase what happens at Adastral Park to all ages visiting the marquee. Here are the list of brilliant zones for you to have a go at:

Virtual Operation
Find out what a virtual Security Operation Centre is! By using a VR headset and motion controllers, come and explore what a Security Operations looks like in the virtual world and help BT find threats on the network!

Future Authentication – a world without passwords
Come and play the attacker and type in a user's password. Discover that by using biometrics (e.g.: typing + face) adds protection against password theft.

Virtual Academy
Are you interested in the future of training? Do you like video games and VR? Then visit the BT VR training experience we use to train our engineers using one of the latest virtual reality headsets.

Activities Zone
The Adastral Park BT Schools enrichment team works with schools and colleges across the UK. From hosting face to face events at Adastral Park, to hosting virtual events such as British Science Week, teacher workshops and classroom experiences. Our aim is to inspire students and teachers in the world of Science, Technology, Engineering, Arts and Maths (STEAM).
Come along and have a go with some of our activities
- Can you create a circuit using just a 6B pencil ?
- Have a go at programming a robot.
- Take part in the Hungry Bee-Bot challenge

Immersive Sport & Immersive Dance
We’re demonstrating how 5G networks and cloud-GPU can be combined to enable next generation high-end extended reality applications and services for sports and dance performance broadcasting
We’re showcasing examples for VR football, AR boxing, AR MotoGP and AR Dance.

Robots for Agriculture
Are robots the future of farming? The use of robotics in agriculture is expected to rapidly increase in the coming years. Robots can assist farmers by carrying out essential, energy intensive physical farm processes such as picking and packing fruit, weeding and targeted treating of crops to reduce pests and diseases. Come and see the robotic tech that will make this possible.

Digital Health Innovations
Come and see some of the latest technology that can be used to support people living in their own homes and the people who care for them

DigiTech Centre
Adastral Park is the home of the DigiTech Centre which is a joint initiative between the University of Suffolk and BT. Find out how the DigiTech Centre offers students the opportunity to study industry connected educational courses in our new world-class specialist laboratories with our cutting-edge technology!

Mvine
Find out the importance of being yourself and staying safe online. We will be explaining what digital identity is and how it is used. Come and meet ‘The Stig’. Have your selfie with The Stig. But who is The Stig?? Mvine

Sound Extensions
A multi-dimensional volume control hand on activity -
Imagine if you could get subtitle-style control over the sound that you hear from your streamed TV or movies? Not just choosing the language, but how much the actors mumble their lines, how intrusive the background noise is, how distracting the music is, how loud the spoken ‘closed captioning’ is… and moving between all of these seamlessly, live – like a conductor controlling an orchestra!

Festival of Suffolk
Adastral Park are delighted to be part of the Festival of Suffolk!
Come and have a chat and we’ll explain how you can get involved in our special “Technology day”, led by BT. Taking place on 21st June, we will be hosting short tech talks by leading experts from BT; a Business and Applied Research EXPO with big companies and SMEs; a chance to visit the Technology Career and Development zone at the DigiTech Centre and tour the BT Showcase – plus more.

“Adastral Park Heritage” marquee (Suffolk Show Grid ref V8)

As part of the Queens Platinum Jubilee celebration zone at the Suffolk Show, we are delighted to be showcasing how technology has changed during the 70 years of the Queens reign. Come and take a journey through time in the Adastral Park Heritage marquee with fantastic interactive displays, make and do activities including:

• All the way from the East Anglian Transport Museum in Lowestoft we have an original 1968 Green GPO Van!
• Come and see the 1970’s GPO telephone exchange. Did you ever work with this technology?
• How many of the BT adverts to you remember?
• Dial up stories on our 1970’s telephones and listen to stories from Adastral Park
• Will you be brave enough to take an immersive VR experience and ‘climb’ the Bawdsey radar tower!
• And for teenagers and younger children…
• Can you complete the Technology timeline?
• Colour a piece of our community art work celebrating the Platinum Jubilee
and have a photo opportunity with Buzby!

We have delved deep into our archives to come up with a host of technology over the 70 years of the Queens reign… Come and share some memories with us and be amazed at how far technology has progressed during that time.

Our third and final location is within the Armed Forces zone (Suffolk Show Grid ref D4)
Our colleagues from the BT Armed Forces network and Openreach are represented in the Suffolk Show Armed Forces zone [Grid ref D4]. Did you know that Openreach are one the largest employers of ex service personnel?

So please come and visit our wonderful technology activities and we look forward to welcoming you all!

Our thanks to our amazing BT colleagues; Mvine; Sound Extensions; Dance East; DigitTech Centre; BT Heritage, Bawdsey Radar Museum and Chronicle Digital Storytelling for all their support in making this happen!