Family day

How far can a model car run on hydrogen? You start by connecting up the leads and seeing the hydrogen come bubbling up out of water – and oxygen too. And it was a day when you could make

You could make a cloud chamber and see particles from outer space. You could write in runes, or study ancient seeds and pollen. You could try a Raspberry Pi or learn about life in polar extremes or on alien

The Family Day on the Saturday is one of the highlights of the Festival. Both floors of the King Street Halls in Kirkwall are packed with activities for all ages to try. We seek each year to source an ever-expanding range of activities from across Scotland and the UK, and are constantly delighted by the enthusiastic response.

You could find out about living in space, or operate a robot arm. You could make a noisy drawing or a porridge poultice, an ancient animal or a modern molecule.

There were lanterns to light and spectra to study. There were rocks to recognise and molecules to make. You could find out about flowers for native bumblebees, or make a foam fossil fish.

Seeing saltwater creatures and working with natural materials, steering a Mars Rover and making a flying saucer … the Family Day was packed with activities.

This was the year when you could handle a meteorite and steer a Mars Rover, try out Stone Age technology and wear an Iron Age hood, join the Dustbin Detectives and the Viking soap carvers, meet an oil production safety team and study life in the sea, learn to card wool and weave threads.

There was so much to see and do for families at the event that the only difficulty for many of the youngsters who walked through the door was what to do first!

Rockets and robots, wave power and waste re-use – it was all part of the Family Day at the 2010 Orkney International Science Festival.