Reflection

On October 4^th, 2025, the Sun Research Group presented our research on energy absorption and Metal-Organic Frameworks (MOFs), the material that just won the Nobel Prize for Chemistry this year, at the Malvern Festival of Innovation, the Family Day. 

We developed a series of activities to present to people what are porous materials and how they can be used for energy absorption. We used hands-on models and activities to explain what are MOFs, why surface area and hydrophocity are important, how they can make materials to absorb impact energy, and how scientist test materials under shock in the lab. You can check out the details of all the activities on our Engagement page.

Throughout the day, almost 100 attendees visited our stall. As this was the Family Day, we met people from a large range of ages and backgrounds. The guests showed a high level of engagement with our stall; with most partaking in every activity. The candy impact test was particularly popular, and kids also enjoyed building bulk structure using small magnetic cubes. A common question that came up during our event was the source of our funding. When told that we receive funding from the UKRI (UK Research and Innovation), they reacted positively and were pleased to hear that our research was publicly funded. This gave us the confidence that the public believes our research is both intriguing and helpful to wider society. 

About 20 of these attendees kindly filled out our post-event questionnaire. The feedback was overwhelmingly positive; with all participants finding our research ‘relevant and engaging’. Below are some comments from our audience: 

“[My] sons enjoyed absolutely every single activity you showed. Thank you!!” 

“It’s amazing to see so many demos and interactive activities for one lab. Well done to all!” 

“Interesting explanations of everyday uses.” 

“Very friendly assistants.” 

“Our son wants to be an engineer.” 

“I want to be an engineer.” 

After the ecent, the group had a coffee meeting together to reflect on the experience: 

“It’s very motivating to see how interested the public is in our work. It encourages me to work harder on my research.” -Ali Siwji 

“I joined the event with my daughter. It was good that we had activities that appealed to both the children and their parents.” -Qing Zhang 

“Most attendees engaged with all the activities, and the candy smashing demo was very eye-catching and attracted people of all ages. Given the large number of activities we had, it went better than I expected.” -Xiaochuan Liu 

“It was a successful event: we enjoyed it and people who visited us also seemed to enjoy it. 

I think it is perhaps the first time for water intrusion to appear on a public engagement event, not sure about SHPB but it is definitely rare, so we should be proud of this.” -Yueting Sun 

In the future, we wish to exhibit at other events targetting at a wide range of different audiences. We will aim to tailor our activities to different ages and backgrounds, and improve the connection between different activities. Internally, we are also proposing some of the developed activities for undergradate teaching and university open days.

Contributions and Acknowledgement:

Ms Eberechi Benjamin led the project and wrote this reflection with input from Dr Yueting Sun. Eberechi is an intern funded by the Royce Undergraduate Internship Scheme (Henry Royce Institute). We have been funded by the UKRI Future Leaders Fellowship (MR/W012138/1) to develop these activities and attend the event. We thank Dr Christopher Hamlett (Discover Materials National Outreach Office) for his guidance and discussions throughout the entire project, Dr Jon Wood for sharing his public engagement experience, and Dr Hamish Yeung and Dr Tim Easun for useful discussions and sharing the MOF kits and other materials.