Colliderfest 2025

Colliderfest 2025

Thursday 13 - Sunday 16 MarchA man looking into a firework.

We’re delighted to be a founding partner of Colliderfest 2025, a festival celebrating science and art!

Colliderfest is a four-day science and arts extravaganza bringing together educational events for schools, a weekend of exciting sciences and arts-based activities, workshops and shows for visitors combined with a large-scale evening spectacle of light installations trailing across the city centre.

Find out more about the full programme at Collider Fest 2025 | Humber Science Festival

 

 

Colliderfest 2025 events at the Museums Quarter

Hunting the Higgs

Free, drop in
Saturday 15 March, 10:00am - 4:00pm
Sunday 16 March, 11:00am - 12noon
Streetlife Museum

Ever wanted to be a particle physicist and run the infamous Large Hadron Collider? In these unique, fast-paced and hugely interactive games, you can! Come solve puzzles, pass challenges, and collaborate with your fellow audience members to run the world's largest and most powerful machine!

Marvellous Mason Bees

Free, drop in
Saturday 15 March, 10:00am - 4:00pm
Sunday 16 March, 11:00am - 3:30pm 
Streetlife Museum

Find out about our research on Mason Bees. Learn about bee cocoons, nests, pollen and more and get hands on with a microscope and 3D printed bee models.

Microbiology

Free, drop in
Saturday 15 March, 10:00am - 4:00pm
Sunday 16 March, 11:00am - 3:30pm 
Streetlife Museum

Make drawings and plasticine models of beneficial and pathogenic microbes

Design and Play

Free, drop in
Saturday 15 March, 10:00am - 4:00pm
Sunday 16 March, 11:00am - 3:30pm 
Hands on History

Design and play with Goodwin Develeopment Trust. Try your hand at lego building, pixel character design, music creation with digital DJ decks and more.

Flood Model

Free, drop in
Saturday 15 March, 10:00am - 4:00pm
Sunday 16 March, 11:00am - 3:30pm 
Museum Quarter Garden

Get hands on with Living With Water's flood model and see the impact that nature and sustainable drainage systems have on how water is stored.

Hands on Engineering Challenges

Free, drop in
Saturday 15 March, 10:00am - 4:00pm
Sunday 16 March, 11:00am - 3:30pm 
Streetlife Museum

Learn about the fundamental principles of Mechanical Engineering with the Institution of Mechanical Engineers by taking on some of our hands-on engineering construction challenges… take a moment, to learn about moments (and forces) and see if you can build our longest self-supporting crane of the day.

Hull Makerspace

Free, drop in
Saturday 15 March, 10:00am - 4:00pm
Streetlife Museum

Come along and find out about Hull's Makerspace (based in Hull Central Library) and try out examples of things that you can create there including programmable robots, interactive 'circuit tiles' and 'pixel art'.

Ocean Pollution Challenge

Free, drop in
Saturday 15 March, 10:00am - 4:00pm
Sunday 16 March, 11:00am - 3:30pm 
Museum Quarter Garden

Take on the Ocean Pollution Challenge and see how much pollution you can remove from our model of the ocean in 15 seconds!

Robotic Dogs and more!

Free, drop in
Saturday 15 March, 10:00am - 4:00pm
Sunday 16 March, 11:00am - 3:30pm 
Museum Quarter Garden

Come along to see just what is going on at Sunderland University! Meet Robotic dogs and more!

Science and Quackery

Free, drop in
Saturday 15 March, 10:00am - 4:00pm
Sunday 16 March, 11:00am - 3:00pm 
Streetlife Museum

Come down to Castelow’s Chemist Shop and meet a Victorian chemist. Get hands-on and discover the inventions and innovations, science and quackery that have led to the pharmacies we see on our streets today

Signaller's Challenge

Free, drop in
Saturday 15 March, 10:00am - 4:00pm
Streetlife Museum

Rise to the challenge of engineering a vital piece of railway safety equipment by being as creative as possible!

South Blockhouse VR

Free, drop in
Saturday 15 March, 10:00am - 4:00pm
Sunday 16 March, 11:00am - 3:30pm 
Hands on History

Explore Henry VIII's formidable fortification - Hull's South Blockhouse.

Supergrid Wind Turbine

Free, drop in
Saturday 15 March, 10:00am - 4:00pm
Sunday 16 March, 11:00am - 3:30pm 
Streetlife Museum

Use your STEM skills to design and make a model wind turbine and compete to see who can make the best set of blades to generate the most power. 

The Journeys of Mary Wollstonecraft

Free, drop in
Saturday 15 March, 10:00am - 4:00pm
Sunday 16 March, 11:00am - 3:30pm 
Hands on History

Mary Wollstonecraft lived in all different places throughout her life. She even went on an adventure to find some stolen treasure. Come and join our hands-on activities that explore Mary Wollstonecraft's life and the 1700s through creative map-making and boat-building with recycled materials.

The Lost Oceans: A museum of lost fossils and marine life

Free, drop in
Saturday 15 May, 11:30am - 12:30pm, 2:30pm - 4:00pm
Sunday 16 March, 12noon - 12:45pm, 2:15pm - 3:30pm
Hull & East Riding Museum

The Lost Ocean explores modern and ancient sea life at different scales and how it has changed through time. You can also bring in your fossil finds from home to have them identified.  

Colliderfest 2025 events at Ferens Art Gallery

Let's Write!

Free, drop in
Saturday 15 March, 10:00am - 4:00pm
Sunday 16 March, 11:00am - 3:30pm 
Ferens Art Gallery

Come along to Fantasty HQ where you'll find a huge fantasy map of the coast. Your mission, if you accept, is to create an Underwater Monster, Lair or Hero to patrol this imaginary coastline. Let your imagination run wild as you write about your fantastical character and then add it to our ever-growing map. 

Solargraphs Pop-Up Exhibition

Free, drop in
Saturday 15 March, 10:00am - 4:00pm
Sunday 16 March, 11:00am - 3:30pm 
Ferens Art Gallery

Solargraphs are very long-exposure pinhole photographs that capture the movement of the sun across the sky over months. These images reveal sweeping arcs of light, showing the changing solar path through the seasons. All of the solargraphs in this collection were taken in and around Hull, showcasing the city’s surroundings in a way that blends time and space into a single frame.

Explorer Storytime with Hull Libraries

Free, drop -in 
Saturday 15 March, 10:00am - 4pm
Sunday 16 March, 11:00am - 3:30pm
Ferens Art Gallery

Calling all creators, artists & tinkerers! Join Hull Libraries for an interactive explorer story time and activities! Drop in to the children's gallery (Gallery 10) at Ferens for books, colouring and more. The library team will be reading stories outloud every 30 minutes throughout the day. No need to book, just turn up.

That's Non-Sense Show

Paid ticketed - £7 adults, £3 children
Saturday 15 March, 2:30pm - 3:30pm
Ferens Art Gallery

Explore the wonderful world of our senses, and the tricks they play on us. Think you see with your eyes and taste with your tongue? Ever wondered why you get dizzy when you spin? How many senses do you even have? Prepare to be amazed and confounded by sensory and optical illusions in this demo-packed exploration of your brain, as we discover your senses aren’t quite as simple as they seem.

Book Here

Robo Bingo - Interactive Alt-Bingo For Introverts

Paid ticketed - £7 adults, £3 children
Sunday 16 March, 11:30am - 12:30pm, 1:30pm - 2:30pm 
Ferens Art Gallery

Bingo meets tech. Join IT consultants, Lloyd and Pete in their interactive show for introverts. Expect robots, comedy and light-hearted gambling*. Put that dabber away! You play along on your (charged) phone, but in a fun way! At first you’ll be searching for numbers in a grid but 40 minutes later you’ll be helping our bingo robot capture amphibians. If you don’t like bingo - come to this.

Book Here

COLLIDERFEST