Family Day at the Festival
The Family Day on the Saturday is one of the highlights of the Festival. Its venue for many years was the King Street Halls in Kirkwall, where both floors were packed with activities for all ages to try. With continuing growth, it moved in 2019 to the larger space of Kirkwall Grammar School.
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 may find yourself moulding a 3D-printed flower or modelling a molecule, operating a robot arm or a Raspberry Pi computer, building a geometric lantern or making a noisy drawing with sonic pencils and electric paint.
You might learn how to recognise native plants and what to do to conserve native bees, how to find your way around the night sky or upcycle fabrics and plastic.
The pandemic prevented delivery in 2020 and 2021, when we developed a varied online programme for schools and families. The situation for 2022 is still uncertain.
Highlights from 2013 Family Day
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.
Highlights from 2012 Family Day
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!
Highlights from 2011 Family Day
You could test your body's capabilities at the SportStation, or connect the K'Nex to build a turbine. You could make water defy gravity, build molecules, and make good use of old plastic bottles.
Highlights from 2010 Family Day
Rockets and robots, wave power and waste re-use – it was all part of the Family Day at the 2010 Orkney International Science Festival.
Highlights from 2009 Family Day
This was the year when you could generate your own wave power, or transform 'waste' into something funky. You could make your own muesli - or your own electronic Loopin, and touch his ears to flash his eyes.