Discover Materials at CoCoMAD 2024

At the Cotteridge Community Music Arts and Dance (CoCoMAD) festival, near Birmingham, the science tent provided not only shelter from the rain…..

….. they also met our Ambassadors who helped visitors learn more about Materials Science and Engineering by smashing chocolate (with our impact tester) and by working with the Faraday Institute to make lemon batteries.

We also trialled our Discover Metals workshop (which we aim to develop into a school resource aimed at 11-14 year olds) in which visitors learned about structure and dislocations in metals using a 2D array of ball bearings, the properties of metals (by using our separating materials activity), they explored mechanical properties by using our tensile tester to pull apart copper wire and learned about the circular economy by looking at the lifecycle of aluminium from ore to disposal.

Huge thanks to our volunteers from both School of Metallurgy and Materials (at the University of Birmingham) and our ambassadors (Harry, Lizzie, Jon,  Kate, Zoe, Henry and Adam) who helped braved the elements and helped inspire at least 400 people (both children and grown ups alike) about materials science.