Our outreach and engagement mission is supported by a collection of high-quality physical resources that we have assembled over the years. These hands-on tools allow us to bring abstract mathematical concepts to life, making them accessible and exciting for audiences of all ages and backgrounds. We are proud of this growing collection and are always looking to expand it — if you have resources you'd like to donate or share, we'd love to hear from you!
The collection includes a range of interactive physical exhibits perfect for science festivals and school visits. Here is a taste of what we have available:
The Bean Machine (also known as a Galton Board) offers a beautiful visual demonstration of concepts of randomness from everyday life that are at the core of probability and statistics. The Double Pendulum dramatically illustrates chaotic motion, showing how tiny changes in starting conditions can lead to wildly different outcomes. Our Harmonograph can produce beautiful curves that are interesting from a mathematical viewpoint (so called “Lissajous curves”), offering an artistic entry point into plane geometry.
For more problem-solving oriented activities, our Travelling Salesman exhibit features a map of the UK dotted with mathematically significant locations, inviting participants to find the shortest route connecting them — an engaging introduction to combinatorics, complexity theory, and optimisation. Our Wireframes and Bubbles tank, lets visitors explore minimal surfaces through soap films, opening the door to beautiful and deep questions in geometry and optimisation.
The bean machine (also known as a Galton board) offers a beautiful visual demonstration of concepts of randomness from everyday life that are at the core of probability and statistics.
The double pendulum dramatically illustrates chaotic motion, showing how tiny changes in starting conditions can lead to wildly different outcomes.
The Travelling Salesman exhibit features a map of the UK dotted with mathematically significant locations, inviting participants to find the shortest route connecting them.
The Wireframes and Bubbles tank, lets visitors explore minimal surfaces through soap films.
Our collection of Penrose Tiles and Polydron pieces provides wonderful hands-on material for exploring tessellations, aperiodic tilings, and the geometry of polyhedra. These resources are particularly popular with school groups and are perfect for activities ranging from primary level to A level.
Our collection also includes a Statapult for activities on projectile motion and optimisation, a Mirror Mirage for exploring the mathematics behind optical illusions, and a range of other resources that we are constantly finding new and creative ways to deploy.
Many of our resources are available to borrow for school visits, science festivals, and community events. If you are a teacher, science communicator, or event organiser interested in using our collection, please do get in touch. Equally, if you have resources you think would complement our collection and would like to donate them, we would be delighted to hear from you — every contribution helps us extend our reach and share the joy of mathematics with even more people.
If you're interested in borrowing from or donating to our collection, we'd love to hear from you!
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