The New Zealand International Science Festival - Annual Report 2025

20 June, 2026

In collaboration with Tūhura Otago Museum, we ran two Renewable Energy workshops and a Pop-up Renewable Energy Science Station over four days at the New Zealand International Science Festival (NZISF) in Ōtepoti Dunedin in July.

In our fully subscribed Renewable Energy workshops, 30 people in each workshop built their own dye-sensitised solar cell using blackberries, and raced hydrogen-powered cars where the hydrogen was generated in situ from the electrolysis of water.

In the Pop-up Renewable Energy Science Station, we demonstrated wind turbines and solar panels, as well as showed off our rotating metal organic framework (MOF) model and making the ever-popular folding buckyballs.

However, the stars of the show were our hydrogen fuel cell-powered cars.

Kids as young as two (as well as "big kids") split water to make hydrogen and used this to race their own cars. The pop-up station was held in the Festival Hub, which was host to around 1400 members of the public.

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