At the recent Cambridge Festival weekend at the Institute for Manufacturing, hundreds of attendees were treated to demonstrations of technology and engineering in practise.
Visitors sampled hands-on experiments, and helped with the “Colouring Cities” community mapping project. Talks on “Your Life is Manufactured” by Professor Tim Minshall, getting the most out of your education by Dr Florian Urmetzer, and the future of AI by a group of IfM PhD students all drew large audiences.
In our “What would you use THAT for?” section, demonstrations from local companies showed how new science and technology can turn into real-world products.
The demonstrations were:
- “Sounds Amazing” including building a model ear drum and making a kazoo from household objects, by some of the world’s leading audio engineers
- Xampla showed how they are replacing plastic films with natural biodegradable materials, in food packaging, vitamin drinks, and takeaway containers
- autohaem, demonstrated how they are automating the production of blood smears for medical tests, and gave visitors lots of opportunities to look at cells under a microscope
- RapidX.Bio explained their plans for rapid point-of-care medical testing for bacteria and viruses
- A Sure Petcare catflap that works with the usual cat identification microchips, showed how commonplace objects can contain significant amounts of technology
- The Light Blue Optics interactive holographic projector showcased an innovation developed right here in the Engineering department at Cambridge
Asked “What would you use THAT for?” the attendees generated a wide range of imaginative and colourful entries.
We are pleased to announce the following winners, who will receive a certificate and a technology-based prize:
- Lettie, Year 3, Holywell Primary School, for her idea of a super hydrophobic umbrella
- Otis, Year 3, University of Cambridge Primary School, for his idea of a “magnet hover” which uses magnets to keep an object hovering in the air
- Layla, Bar Hill, for her idea of creating a biodegradeable drinks can
We hope they enjoy their prizes!
Many thanks to all the enthusiastic attendees and demonstrators who helped make this an exciting afternoon and asked us some impressively challenging questions about the products on display.