The Swindon Tomorrow Festival with Science Outreach!

Last weekend Mr Williams, Mr Hope and a group of 24 students travelled to the Swindon Tomorrow Festival at the STEAM Museum to present a series of exciting physics demonstrations to members of the public. From the coldest liquid nitrogen demonstrations, to ‘levitating’ superconductors, all of our demonstrations often left the audience returning to our stall for more.

We particularly enjoyed presenting demonstrations based on both resistance, which is always popular with young children, and diamagnetism. It is always incredibly motivating and inspiring when members of the public seem genuinely interested in the content that we are sharing, and the atmosphere at Swindon Tomorrow meant that every moment was a great deal of fun for both those hearing us speak and ourselves in the stall.

One of our favourite moments at the Festival was presenting to a young boy who asked a great number of questions including “What is an electron?” Though his questions were often simple, in that moment, it truly felt as though our demonstrations were truly motivating and inspiring people, especially those younger than us. We are so grateful to have had the opportunity to work with both liquid nitrogen and superconductors, which people our age do not usually get to do.

We were honoured to present alongside some very prestigious organisations such as the University of Bristol, the University of Reading, Intel, UKRI and Dyson. It was a great privilege to be able to present alongside such inspiring institutions and also inspire the next generation of scientists ourselves. It is always amazing to see the impact you can have on the children who visit and come away from our demonstrations happy, excited and with a greater interest in science.

When we were not presenting, we also had the opportunity to explore the Festival ourselves which was very interesting. We practised keyhole surgery; learnt about quantum computers with Bristol University; watched a beautiful presentation about the universe in the Planetarium; and even tried an alternative food source in the form of crickets.

Ayaka & Ellie
Lower Sixth