This year's Cambridge Festival took place over two weeks in March and once again the IET Cambridge Network ran a stand during the Family Weekend Event on 23rd and 24th March.

We've been representing the IET at the Festival for many years and this year we were again joined by IET volunteers from the local area, keen to share their enthusiasm for engineering and technology. The team included experienced engineers, young professionals and undergraduates who ran demonstrations of engineering principles and answered questions about engineering and the IET. Demonstrations included energy generation and electromagnetic induction and we did experiments with magnets and plasmas. Interactive demos always work best and the chance for children to build an LED torch to take home has always been a popular activity. With hundreds of visitors to the stand each day, it can be hard work keeping up with all the questions but it's always a pleasure to see the delight on the faces of parents, children, students and even tourists when they discover something new.

The Cambridge Festival is a highlight of the year for our Local Network giving us the opportunity to promote what we do and to meet potential volunteers who may want to join the committee or help at future events, particularly those with a STEM focus. It's also helped us to find speakers for future talks in our annual programme of evening lectures. 

I was joined on the stand by committee members Vernon Boyd, Dave Horan, Petros Fountas and David Blake along with volunteers, Ru Wang, Elisabeth Franks, Cormac O'Prey, Mark Brass, Marta Opalińska and Łukasz Kulas.  I'd like to thank everyone for their enthusiasm and stamina and for helping to make the event such a great success.

The Cambridge Festival is an annual celebration of science, arts, and culture that takes place before Easter in the city of Cambridge, UK. It offers a range of activities and events for all ages and interests, from lectures and exhibitions to workshops and performances. Feedback for the Festival as a whole has been very positive this year with 10,000 visitors during the Family weekend alone. Overall they rated it 4.7 out of 5 and described it as "Engaging Interesting and Inspiring" with 90% saying they would return next year. Visit the Cambridge Festival website to find out more.

We are always on the lookout for new volunteer committee members to help organise our activities both online and in various locations in and around Cambridge. If you would like to find out more about volunteering for the IET Cambridge Network, please contact us at CambridgeLN@ietvolunteer.org