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Balancing balls on upward streams of air, and looking at aerodynamics. |
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Can you make something float on thin air? Find out how to levitate ping pong balls and why planes can fly in this entertaining experiment. |
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Looking at different animal skulls to compare them and see how they differ. |
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Why do some animals have really long beaks? Why do others have really big TEETH? With our collection of animal skulls, you can find out how different animals evolved to suit their habitats - and how you are a lot more similar to them than you might think! |
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Building an arch bridge, and then walking over it. |
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Can you build a bridge strong enough to walk on? |
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Peering at the outside world through a lens. |
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The camera obscura uses a lens to project an image of the outside world onto a white screen inside the CHaOS event. Can you figure out why it's upside down? |
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Building a series of cantilever bridges |
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Can you build bridges across wider and wider rivers? |
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How can we use arches to hold up a cathedral? |
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See how simple shapes can fit together to hold up a large structure, like a cathedral! |
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Removing copper oxides from coins. |
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Those grubby coppers in your pocket or purse can be shined up in minutes, give it a try and find out how it works. |
Please note: This experiment is not used on the summer roadshow |
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Explore the remarkable properties of cornflour mixed with water. |
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Slimey, gooey and messy: cornflour is one of our favourite experiments! Come and stick your hands in, and figure out if it behaves like a liquid or a solid... |
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Looking at a variety of small creatures that you can find in your garden |
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Insects, worms, bugs and more: what lives in your garden? Get up close and personal and see for yourself! |
Please note: This experiment is not used on the summer roadshow |
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A collection of Mesozoic vertebrate fossils |
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Ever wanted to see how big a T-rex's claws were, or how tiny its brain was? Ever wanted to touch real dinosaur bones or hold a fossilised shark poo? Then this experiment is for you! |
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Dissecting a sheep's eyeball to show the structure of the eye |
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Only at "Crash, Bang, Squelch!": see the inner workings of the eye first-hand by dissecting a sheep's eyeball! Feel the smoothness of the lens, prod the gelatinous fluid and see the amazing coloured sheen of the layers that help sheep to see well in the dark. |
Please note: This experiment is not used on the summer roadshow |
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This magical hat will confuse your senses! |
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Auditory (sound) cues to help us figure out where interesting things in the world around us are - try confusing your brain with the Ear-Switching Hat! |
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Splitting water into hydrogen and oxygen, and using the recombination of these to launch ping-pong balls. |
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Electrolysis in the process of splitting water into hydrogen and oxygen using electricity, and then recombining them explosively! We'll use talking about energy as an excuse to launch a ping pong ball into the air... |
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Making electricity, and using it to spin a motor. |
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Generate electricity and learn all about how it works! |
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Demonstrating the power of a carbon dioxide fire extinguisher. |
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What does a fire need to burn, and how can we put it out? Find out how we can put out a candle with a cupful of gas! |
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Making giant soap bubbles and looking at how they behave in different shaped frames. |
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I'm forever blowing bubbles... but why aren't any of them square? Can you make a square bubble? Come and have a go... |
Please note: This experiment is not used on the summer roadshow |
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Functional model of the intestine |
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Everyone knows that your intestines are long, but how long is long? Find out with our scale fabric model, and you might be surprised! |
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Large working model of a hand and forearm, with all the tendons to show how a hand works. |
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Take control of an enormous hand, playing the part of the muscles that control it! Can you work out how to make a fist? Why are there tendons running down both sides of the fingers? And exactly how are your thumbs different to your fingers? |
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Anatomical model of the heart to show how the heart works. |
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An anatomical model of the heart providing an opportunity for children to talk about the the circulatory system and find out why we need blood. |
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Jars of all sorts of horrible house pests: bugs, flies, worms and more! |
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Jars of all sorts of horrible house pests: bugs, flies, worms and more! |
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Making hot air balloons with plastic bags and a toaster. |
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Make your own hot air balloon with a plastic bag and a toaster! |
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Anatomical model of the half jaw, parts can be removed to show structure of the teeth. |
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An enlarged model of the jaw and some giant teeth, which allows children to remove and open teeth to see what they look like inside. Ask us why we have milk teeth, why there are different sorts of teeth and why different species have different types of teeth. |
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Breaking open cells of a kiwi fruit and making the DNA inside visible to the human eye |
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In this experiment we get DNA out of living cells in kiwi fruit. The DNA can be made fully visible to the human eye - no microscopes or magnifying glass needed! Done in less than 5 minutes in front of your eyes. |
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Functional model of the larynx |
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A working model of the larynx which uses a hand pump to force air across two closely-apposed rubber sheets (i.e. vocal cords) to make a sound. |
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Jars of specmens of frogs, bees and butterflies from different lifecycle stages |
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Ever wondered what happened to a creature between it being an egg and an adult? Look at our jars life cycles collection for Butterflies, Bees and Toads and see for yourself! |
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Using glow sticks to talk about chemical kinetics. |
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What do glowsticks and locusts have in common? Watch what happens as we heat them up and cool them down - how long can you get your glowstick to glow? How fast can you make the locusts move? |
Please note: This experiment is not used on the summer roadshow |
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Using pulleys and levers to explore mechanical advantage |
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Check out this huge tripod with weights and pulleys, they try using pulleys and levers to explore the idea of "mechanical advantage" |
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Cuddly bugs, props from a lab, and a hand-washing experiment |
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Bacteria are living things made from only one cell. You've probably heard about how they cause disease, but you might not know about some of the friendlier ones that are useful to us. Come and investigate our extra large cuddly microbe collection! |
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Get up close an personal to some parasites (well, preserved slides), and find out more about them... |
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Parasites are a massive problem for global health, particularly in the developing world. Find out more about these creatures, who get a bit too close for comfort! |
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Examining a variety of objects under a microscope, including a variety of slides |
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Microscopes have the power to show far more than you can with the naked eye alone: come and see some of our strange slides, made of bugs and body bits! |
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Exploding film canisters with lemon juice and bicarb. |
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Make an impressive explosion with kitchen ingredients and find out more about what makes things go with a bang. |
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Box of model cells |
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You'll often see these model cells helping to explain other biology experiments, but one day they may get their own solo careers... |
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A velcro apron with detachable 3D organs, to show what's inside your body. |
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A wearable tabard with space to attach various internal organs using velcro. |
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Using a peak flow meter to measure peak flow rates |
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A peak flow meter is used by medical staff to measure the maximum speed at which a person can expel a 'huff' of air. |
Please note: This experiment is not used on the summer roadshow |
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Making model neurones from coloured pipe cleaners! |
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Neurones are cells in your brain, that connect to lots of other neurones. Make some brains cells yourself with brightly coloured pipecleaners and the expert help of one of our demonstrators. |
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See the amazing patterns made by food colouring and detergent in milk. |
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A little milk, a little food dye, a little washing-up liquid... and an amazing display of colour. See the stunning swirling effects from disrupting the surface tension. |
Please note: This experiment is not used on the summer roadshow |
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Making a natural pH indicator. |
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We use a little red cabbage juice to find out more about acids and bases in the world around us. |
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A box of rocks and fossils |
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Find out about explosive volcanoes, shiny crystals, and the exotic animals that lived millions of years ago |
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A polyacrylamide solution, which "climbs up" a rod when it is rotated in the solution |
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Discover a strange goo with same strange properties. Watch as it is able to climb up a rod in front of your eyes! |
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Use an oscilloscope and slinky spring to see how sound travels |
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Find out what sound is, the difference between low and high sounds, and loud and quiet sounds, and learn about sounds we can't hear |
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Meet Boris, the friendly CHaOS skeleton. |
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Boris is a friendly life-sized plastic skeleton- come and say hello! |
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Rapid crystal growth from sodium acetate. |
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Find out about how handwarmers work, and see solid crystals form in seconds right infront of your eyes. |
Please note: This experiment is not used on the summer roadshow |
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Using a stethoscope to listen to the heart and find out how it works. |
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Kids and adults alike enjoy the chance to listen to their own heartbeat, and this can form the basis of a discussion about how the heart works, what blood does, and how and why your heart beats faster or slower at different times. |
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A suspension bridge made from rope and wood that children can walk across. |
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Walk across our bridge, then find out what makes it stay up. |
Please note: This experiment is not used at Crash Bang Squelch! |
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Using chromatography to investigate the colour of food. |
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Using just water and bits of paper, split up the colours in pens and food colourings to see how they're made up of a mixture of differently coloured dyes. |
Please note: This experiment is not used on the summer roadshow |
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Using a tendon hammer to show and explain some strange reflexes |
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Have a go at using a tendon hammer to show and explain some strange reflexes... |
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Looking at floating and sinking using a bed of sand |
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Find out more about quicksand and how sand can behave like a fluid. |
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Using a medieval inspired siege-weapon to launch bean bag bunnies |
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Fire bean-bag bunnies across the room using our trebuchets! Can you work out how to make them go really far? |
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Looking at how materials fluoresce in UV light. |
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The world looks different when it's lit by UV... see how you can use this type of light to make clothes look extra-bright, find out whether banknotes are real or fake, and revive dead glowsticks. |
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Various demonstrations using a vacuum pump. |
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The idea of a vaccum is very different to what we experience in everyday life, with some surprising consequences! Oh, and the experiment involves balloons too! |
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Using the refractive index of vegetable oil to make a glass bowl 'disappear'. |
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Ordinary glass objects seem to disappear as you submerge them in a bath of oil. This experiment is spectacular and very messy! |
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Constraining light in a stream of water, making it work like an optical fibre. |
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Find out what happens when light is trapped inside a stream of water. Make a beam of light bend round corners and see how fibre optics are helping to change the world! |
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Launching lemonade bottle water rockets with a foot pump. |
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Try not to get wet as you fire water-powered rockets into the air. Who can shoot it the highest? |
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A collection of x-rays and other forms of medical diagnostic imagery. |
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Have you ever had an x-ray? Have you ever wondered how they work? Take a look at our collection of exciting x-rays and mysterious MRI scans, test your anatomical knowledge and diagnostic skills and find out about on the physics and medicine behind the images. |
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Showing one of the transport systems in plants. |
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Combine food colouring with water transport in stem and flowers- you can then see where all the water goes! |
Please note: This experiment is not used on the summer roadshow |
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The idea is to look at how yeast grows and how it relates to bread making. It involves getting the kids to make bread dough. |
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Like all the best biology experiments, this is hands-on and messy! See what happens when you add living yeast to a bread mix, and don't forget to come back a bit later to see what's happened to your dough! |
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