Science is sweet at the RI Family Fun Day!

On Saturday 22^nd February, a team of Discover Materials Ambassadors headed to the Royal Institution for a Family Fun Day, where we provided two interactive activities to the RI’s young members, their families, and to the general public. Almost 400 people were in attendance and the theme of the day was ‘Food, glorious food!’, which tied in with this years’ Christmas Lectures.

Our impact testing of chocolate bars with different internal structures and exploring the tensile properties of gummy/chewy/brittle sweets were a lot of fun for the members, who enjoyed learning about various material properties in the context of their favourite sweet treats! For the tensile tester activity, some highly inquisitive minds wanted to investigate the rate of loading and also test our polymer dogbone specimens that show a variety of brittle/ductile properties and determine the best material for a takeaway box.

The day was led by Thomas Thorn, our Discover Materials Ambassador from Queen Mary University of London, but he had plenty of vital support from seven new Ambassadors from Imperial College London. The day wouldn’t have been a success without their enthusiasm and teamwork, so many thanks to Orán Magan, Candice Huo, Armand Dubois, Matthew Antonio, Samantha Chow, Sherry Chen and Dylan Taylor. We also wish to thank the Royal Institute for inviting us to take part and for their organisation of a wonderful event.