The Festival of Stuff will once again fill the street outside the Institute of Making with demonstrations and making stations. Come along to celebrate processes and materials from 3D printed arcade machines to propane trumpets and monster slimes to a Great British glue off. 

Finishing techniques take centre-stage at this year's Extravaganza, with a whole section of making stations dedicated to extreme sanding, polishing and shining of all sorts of materials to create wondrous surfaces. Master plasterers, expert metal workers and deft wood polishers will do demos, while Dr Sarah Wilkes will share her extensive knowledge of nano-surfaces.

Do you have what it take to produce a perfectly smooth wooden cube through six grades of sand paper and a lot of elbow grease? 'Finishing' techniques take centre-stage at this year's Extravaganza, with a whole section of making stations dedicated to sanding, polishing, glueing, shining and generally buffing up materials like wood, metal and more. Master plasterers, expert metal workers and deft wood polishers will show their mastery over finishing techniques while Institute of Making research fellow Dr Sarah Wilkes will give your finished piece a once over with her turbo microscope and extensive knowledge of nano-surfaces.

We will additionally be looking at all things metal with an outdoor chimney furnace that will show a bronze casting in action as well as a make-your-own ferrofluid stand and an hands on pewter casting activity indoors. 

The festival will bring back a few of our all time favourites from the year gone by and... hang on, did someone just say 'slime'? Through the day the Institute of Making team will be mixing up a bucket of monster goo for you to poke and prod as an homage to our most popular open day ever. Researcher Ellie Doney will carry on the slimy theme with her food tools station, a bucket of polymorph and innumerable egg whites. 

To recover from all that excitement, retire to our algae beauty bar run by chemical engineer, also known as the queen of algae, Dr Brenda Parker and her algae gang. Alternatively explore the strange beast that is the Institute of Making shop and marvel at the Materials Library inside the Makespace. All this and much more will be at our Saturday Extravaganza for exploring, creating and turning on its head.