Whizz Bang Pop Family Science Day boosts visitor numbers

Our new events calendar is helping us attract more visitors and share Nottinghamshire’s rich industrial heritage with more people. On Saturday 10 March we worked alongside Wollaton Hall’s ‘Science in the Park’ event, a celebration of British Science Week 2018.

These are just a few of the exciting, hands-on science experiments enjoyed by visitors of all age, but especially children.

• We used oil, water, food colouring and effervescent tablets to create our own Lava Lamps.
• We mixed cornflower, water and green food colouring to make a non-Newtonian fluid (which was really difficult to get out of the washing-up bowl at the end!).
• Volunteers brought in all sorts of fab gadgets from home, including a UV light and UV materials (including UV nail varnish which proved to be really popular!), a microscope and slides, a couple of HexBugs and a track for them to run around, a Sterling Engine, a Wimshurst Machine, a Newton’s Cradle as well as a range of construction puzzles and two really cute solar-powered bugs.
• The Mother’s Day bath bomb activity proved extremely popular, selling out in record time and raising over £25 in donations.
• We also got into a very sticky mess constructing tall towers – our young Chief Scientists agreed that architects really shouldn’t make skyscrapers out of marshmallows and spaghetti!

Thanks to everyone who got involved to make the event a great success. We had 304 visitors (141 adults, 30 concessions and 133 children) and our takings on the day (including shop purchases and donations) were almost one-third of the whole of February’s.

If you would like to help our visitors make the most of their visits to Nottingham Industrial Museum, please consider volunteering. We are always keen to hear from enthusiastic people who can help us deliver our mission of move, teach and inspire. And keep an eye out for more fun things to do in Nottingham.