Inventors of the future are being encouraged to gather household items to top up their toolboxes in preparation for a week of making, engineering, crafting, and creating.

The Science and Industry Museum traditionally dedicates May half term to tinkering. This culminates in MakeFest, a weekend of creative family fun. Despite its doors being temporarily shut, the museum remains devoted to inspiring the next generation of innovators and will be challenging audiences to get crafting from home and sharing their creations online as part of #MakeFestAtHome.

From Monday 25 – Friday 29 May, #MakeFestAtHome will introduce daily challenges inspired by the museum’s extensive online learning resources and designed to develop skills in science, technology, engineering and maths in people of all ages and abilities. It is an opportunity for whole families to discover how ideas of the past can influence inventions of the future, and put this into practice by building their own creations. 

Monday’s challenge will see makers create something that flips, spins, pushes or pulls when they make it move. Manchester’s towering skyline is the inspiration behind Tuesday’s activity to build it tall, and Wednesday’s task will ignite everyone’s inner engineer during a challenge to build it strong. It’s all about noise on Thursday and creating something to sound it loud, and Friday’s task is to make it fly by fashioning something that glides like a plane through the air.

In preparation for the tasks that lay ahead, makers of the future are being encouraged to build up their tinkering toolbox by collecting household items to transform into exciting DIY creations. This includes anything from loo rolls, lolly sticks and plastic bottles, to straws, sticky tape, paper and card.

Gina Cooke, Contemporary Science Programme Producer at the Science and Industry Museum, said: “MakeFest is an annual celebration that aims to get whole families being creative together.  Although we’re not able to deliver our usual activities at the museum, we’re delighted that our extensive online resources mean everyone can get creative, make things from home and share their ideas and creations with us on social media using #MakeFestAtHome.

“Our aim is to inspire people through ideas that changed the world. The #MakeFestAtHome challenges provide an understanding of some of the world’s most awe-inspiring innovations, many of which we are lucky to have on display at the museum.”

For more information about MakeFest, visit www.scienceandindustrymuseum.org.uk/whats-on/makefest-at-home. Challenges will be available on the website and on the Science and Industry Museum’s social media channels, with makers encouraged to share snaps of their creations using #MakeFestAtHome.

To be the first to hear about news and events from the Science and Industry Museum, sign up to its mailing list at www.scienceandindustrymuseum.org.uk.

The Science and Industry Museum temporarily closed its doors on Tuesday 17 March following Government advice that aims to contain the spread of COVID-19. There is currently no set date for reopening, but it looks forward to welcoming visitors back in the future.