Children 12 and under | Royal Institution

Build a homemade lava lamp and use a surprising property of citrus fruits to explore the science of floating and sinking.

Build rubber band cannons from crisp tins and drinks bottles, and use them to explore projectile motion.

Investigate how many squares there are on a chessboard (hint: not 64) and extend this reasoning to cubes, triangular grids, and

Introduce your students to pi and explore its fundamental connection to circles, and the randomness in its infinite string of

Explore Sierpinski’s triangle, a beautiful mathematical shape which appears in surprising places. Create the shape in different

What is the Golden Ratio and why is it interesting? Why does it crop up in nature so often? Here we explore these questions and

Explore some encryption techniques used throughout history for guarding top-secret information. Encode messages using a variety

Investigate the random nature of primes and the unusual patterns that emerge as you delve into them. Use a special number

Explore parabolas occurring in nature, science and architecture and investigate the maths that underpins them. Create some of

Explore mathematical techniques for manipulating numbers from the minuscule to the huge. Test students' skills at estimation