The Abingdon Market Place was buzzing with excitement today as the ATOM Science Festival brought scientific fun for families. Frank, who volunteers at the lock, told me he loved this event every year because it gave him such hope seeing all the youngsters involved in all the science activities.

The Town Crier did not need to tell anybody about the Science Festival because we were already there, and so he let people know about the Abingdon Artists Exhibition at St Helen’s Church (its last day).

The hands-on activities fascinated the youngsters. A particular highlight for them and me was creating slime using just four household ingredients. See the video at the end of this piece where I have a go.

The Abingdon Naturalist Society’s stall offered a glimpse into pondlife, with children and adults eager to spot the frogs and newts in the aquarium.

Budding physicists at the Oxford University Particle Physics stall could construct their own universe using “up” and “down” quark Lego bricks.

Over at the JET Laboratory stall, robots were being trained to help dismantle the Tokamak now its work is done. The JET Fusion research facility at Culham ran its final tritium experiments in the Tokamak recently and got a new fushion energy output to input record.

Fitzharris School showed off their battery-powered go-carts, designed for 90-minute endurance races on a single 12-volt battery.

The Abingdon Astronomical Society gave people a view of the sun through a specially filtered telescope. Two sunspots were visible. As the day wore on and the sun was hidden, the telescope was redirected to focus on a weather vane.

There were about twenty stalls in all, including the ATOM stall selling tickets for the talks in the next week. See https://www.atomfestival.org.uk/

There was also demonstrations and talks at Abingdon County Hall Museum where children and adults could ask about the table load of fossils

Down in the basement there were talks that got transmitted by Youtube.

There were also talks in the Roysse Room at the Guildhall.

Finally here is the video of slime making. With thanks to Evotec at Milton Park who normally develop drugs. The first ingredient was PVA glue, then food colour, bicarbonate of soda, and contact lens solution.