Wednesday 24 October saw the VIP launch party of the sixth annual Manchester Science Festival and I was lucky enough to be invited.
The launch was held at the Manchester Museum of Science and Industry (MOSI) of ReAgent is a sponsor. And what a great night it turned out to be!
The event was incredibly well-organised, managing to be both informal and extremely educational at the same time. After a short welcome from MOSI Director Jean Franczyk, we were encouraged to mingle and get involved with the numerous live demonstrations and ‘hands on’ activities going on. These were great fun and it was clear that all those present were really enjoying themselves.
Some of the events on offer were:-
- Working 3D printers which were able to reproduce a range of 3D items as we watched
- Balloon skewering where we were shown how to insert a fine wooden skewer straight through an inflated balloon, in one end and out of the other – incredible but true!
- ‘Hands on’ experience of the Sunflower Project, a global event to celebrate the centenary of Alan Turing’s birth. People around the world have grown over 11,000 sunflowers and have counted the spiral patterns of seeds in the flowerheads. These patterns very often follow the Fibonacci number sequence and this work is helping researchers develop Turing’s ideas about the relationship between nature and mathematics
This year’s 9-day Manchester Science Festival runs from 27 October to 4 November and aims to encourage people to come out and play, create and experiment. After all, Manchester is a city of science and the birthplace of the Industrial Revolution.
There are some great family events taking place over the period such as:-
- Brainy Bolton, a programme of activities taking place at the University of Bolton
- Family fun at Salford Science
- Interactive code-breaking games
- A computer which works on dominoes rather than electricity
- Meteorite day
- How to mummify oranges
- An extensive Arts Meets Science programme including collaborations between artist Gina Czarnecki and stem cell scientist Sara Rankin
So, whether you’re young and looking for that initial spark of interest in science or have had a lifetime in the sciences and just need your enthusiasm rekindling, I would definitely recommend a trip to one of the Science Festival events. There really is something for everybody this year!
