Just before the holidays Imperial shared festive science with neighbours at a White City Christmas market.

Thirty staff and students helped run Imperial’s pop-up market stall at this year’s White City Community Christmas. The volunteers handed out laser-cut Christmas baubles alongside hosting science demonstrations taking in drones, Lego robots, miniature clouds and a friction experiment with a flying Santa. Visitors to the market were serenaded by students from Imperial College Union’s A Capella group Take Note.

The market was organised by Wormholt and White City Big Local

The market itself was organised by Wormholt & White City Big Local, bringing the local communities together for food, music and activities on the 17 December.  With the College’s new White City Campus under development nearby, members of Imperial were keen to get host a stall and interact with their new neighbours.  Volunteers took part from the Imperial Hack Space, the Outreach team, Imperial Thinkspace and the Department of Physics – alongside Take Note and Community Engagement Officer for White City, Priya Pallan.

Catching clouds at the Imperial stall

Priya said: “We all had a fantastic time at the market. It attracted hundreds of local residents.  Attendees were blown away by our  ‘Hold a Cloud Experiment’ and the ‘Maker  Music Corner’ and were particularly interested in finding out more about our White City Campus and the types of activities they would be able to engage with in the future.  I’m very grateful to the organisers, as well as to all of our fantastic volunteers for taking part.”

One of the people behind this year’s market, Finn Woodhill from Wormholt & White City Big Local, said: “Big Local Community Christmas encapsulates so much passion from the local community from music, food and creative businesses. This year it was brilliant being able to welcome an array of interactive science and technology fun as part of that community. Many people during the event told me they really enjoyed Imperial being there and were excited to see what else Imperial will be offering in the future!”

Imperial's volunteers