Discover Materials at CoCoMAD 2026

On 4th July 2026, Discover Materials returned to CoCoMAD at Cotteridge Park for what turned out to be a fantastic day of materials outreach. We interacted with nearly 450 people over the course of the day, and had a wonderful time sharing some of the work we have developed to make materials science more accessible and enjoyable to general audiences.

Our most popular demonstration turned out to be the Water Whoosh Slides (developed by DM Ambassador, Dr Dan Scotson as a part of the Mapping Materials Science and Engineering Project funded by the Royal Academy of Engineering’s Ingenious Awards) that explores the idea of surface roughness and the interaction of water droplets with different materials.

Additionally, we also had a wonderful time speaking about some of our eternal favourites from our trusty busking box – lotus leaf samples, samples of the Burdock plant, a piece of the iridescent morpho butterfly wing, and a segment of a cuttlebone. These, viewed under our tabletop microscopes, sparked several interesting questions.

The energy sticks that indicate whether or not a material is a good conductor were met with great fascination, as was our demonstration of the generation of eddy currents along a long copper tube.

Big thanks to Harry Leach, Shilpa Rajkumar, Ilija Rašović, Chris Hamlett and Durga Tilak for their time and enthusiasm in supporting the event.