No Limits to the Fun

The students taking part in the Infinity Festival were moved from the auditorium to the numerous workshops that were being held in the WLA Science and Technology Department. There, they were taken into different classroom full of the wide world of science. The open area was hosting the Science Museum London team who entertained their audience with tricks and flying frogs. For one of the first experiments, the team explained Isaac Newton’s laws of physics by manually pressurising a plastic bottle which was weighted down by a friendly beanbag frog. As the pressure in the bottle rose by the foot pump it felt like the pressure in the room was rising too. Students on the front row cautiously leaned back in their seats, shifting their bags further out of the way. Suddenly, both the bottle and frog shot high into the air as all the shocked heads of both teachers and children craned upwards to track the trajectory. The misguided flight sent the two poor projectiles crashing to the floor of the first floor, metres above the heads of the participants.

Ronan and Britney were in charge of the sessions today. Ronan told us:

“Science is in the world all around us. It’s so important. Helps us understand everything! Science makes up everything; shoes, glasses, clothes. Everyone is a scientist because we all use science.”

Among the more scientific themes that were explored in the demonstrations was magic vs. science. The opening trick performed was the cliché parlour trick of magically whipping a table cloth out from under objects without them falling. However, this was quickly explained by the Science Museum team that it was simply the fabric of the cloth generating friction and being able to use that to keep the objects standing.

Lily, the student, said “Pulling off the table cloth was really fun. It felt really heavy for one split second but after that it felt really easy. It was exhilarating.”

Over the course of the demonstrations done by the Science Museum team, more bangs, crashes, and gasps ensued from the shocked audience. A crowd was soon attracted to watch the extreme experiments that were being performed: the special guests, ambassadors and teachers were all memorised by the flying pringles cans and liquid nitrogen kettles. Soon, the space around the workshop had been covered from intrigued spectators, all wanting to catch a glimpse of an amazing act of science.

“Very exciting and sudden. The experiments were really unexpected.” ~ Tess

“There were a lot of experiments and it was really exciting, my favourite experiment was the big rocket because I made a really loud bang!” ~ Year 8 Student

“There were lots of loud bangs!” ~Evie