ChemSparks Day Out at Insitute of Making
Hello there!
My name is Dalia Ahmed and I am one of the ‘ChemSparks’. My project investigates the relevance of wooden rollercoasters over time. Our central divergent question is ‘why are wooden rollercoasters still built today?’. This question helps us narrow down what we want to look at.
As part of this journey, we were given the opportunity to visit UCL’s annual ‘Festival of Stuff’. This included several activities, all housed in a small courtyard. The activities included: mini golf, making your own visor and a wide variety of demonstrations and experiments.
The mini golf course included many scientific discoveries and principles that were all explained to us by the students who guided us through the rules. The course incorporated principles such as; black holes, microscopes, flat Earth and many more (all were great fun!) Even though I can’t play very well, I thoroughly enjoyed it and as a reward for finishing the course, I was given a Marimo moss ball (I named him Scruffy), which I am determined to keep alive!
They had a broad range of demonstrations and experiments which covered very difficult subject matter but was presented in a fun and light-hearted way. The experiments included; making your own bouncy ball, pencil and super-absorbent polymer (also known as Orbeez!), which many of us still have today.
Overall, if I were to sum up my time at the festival in one sentence it would be “an educational experience like no other”. I would highly recommend this amazing to everyone and anyone.
Goodbye, thanks for reading!