Campus in the City

a young boy puts a crochet red blood cell into a crochet artery

Campus in the City 2026 is back!

Lancaster University’s Campus in the City is taking over More Music in Morecambe on Friday 10 April, 10.30am to 4pm, bringing a full day of free, drop‑in, family‑focused fun.

Get ready to discover mind‑blowing research and dive into hands‑on activities, crafts, games, experiments, virtual‑reality adventures and so much more.

What will you discover at Campus in the City?

See below for what activities are on offer this year. There’s something for all ages. Drop in anytime, stay as long as you like, and enjoy one unmissable day to spark your curiosity in the heart of Morecambe.

a young girl takes the temperature of student doctor

Teddy Bear Hospital and VR Body Explorer

Be a doctor for a day at the Teddy Bear Hospital! Bring your teddy for a check‑up using toy stethoscopes, bandages and medical kits, and learn simple facts about bodies, healthy habits and how we look after ourselves. Older children can dive into a thrilling virtual reality journey inside the human body, shrinking down to cell‑size, travelling through the bloodstream, riding alongside red blood cells and watching the heart pump in real time. It’s an exciting, curiosity‑sparking way to explore the heart, lungs, blood and bones. Teddy Bear Hospital is suitable for all ages, VR experience ages 7 and over.

a black and white image of an old odeon cinema

Seaside Cinema

Travel back in time and enjoy a short film that mixes rare Morecambe footage from 1917–1965 with stories from today’s community. See the town then and now, from its seaside heritage to the Morecambe of today and the future taking shape with Eden Project North. Explore a family‑friendly exhibition of photos, recordings and stories, then get hands‑on with creative activities. Design postcards, colour seaside scenes and imagine the Morecambe of tomorrow. Add your creations to our time‑travel treasure trove. Suitable for all ages.

a board game showing a coastline with game cards and 8 sided dice

The Big Coastal Quest Game

Join a giant tabletop adventure game created through the 'Our Future Coast' project, led by Wyre Council. Choose your character, tackle missions and use clever, nature‑friendly ideas to protect places and shape what happens next. Up to 40 players can team up across huge connected map boards to explore future coastal challenges from Liverpool to Millom in Cumbria. Work together, make big decisions and see how your choices change the coast. Suitable for ages 7 and over.

a white humanoid robot labelled QT and a smaller red robot labelled Miko

Robot Discovery Den

Visit the exciting robot zone and meet our very special guests - QT and Miko, real child friendly robots visiting Campus in the City! You can play with QT, dance with Miko and bring your burning curious questions for the robots. Explore robots from the past and present, design your own dream robot and add your ideas to the display wall to help inspire innovations for the future. Suitable for ages 5 and over.

a girl in a pink top stands in front of an orange background and hold a magnifying glass over one ey

Face Detectives

Can you spot a real face from a fake face? Put your detective skills to the test in this hands‑on challenge to see if you can tell who’s human and who’s been created by artificial intelligence (AI). Look closely for tiny clues, vote with stickers and see how your choices compare with everyone else’s. Try quick-fire face games, draw your own real and computer faces and chat with researchers about fake faces. Suitable for ages 7 and over.

a family watch a man with long hear and a beard wears a protective visor on his head look at a test

Physics Fun Factory

From swirling gravity wells to building your own Lego electric racers, our fantastic physicists are back with a packed line‑up of hands‑on physics fun.Send marbles orbiting around the gravity well and race a mini electric vehicle you’ve built yourself. You can also blast objects through a wind tunnel, craft a science badge and enjoy some seriously cool liquid‑nitrogen surprises. Suitable for all ages.

2 girls sit holding on to inflable planets listening to a student in a tshirt labelled physics

Be a Space Size Explorer

Explore how space scientists figure out the size of our universe with fun, hands‑on mini experiments. See how nearby stars seem to 'wobble', time the flashes of a star, compare how bright exploding stars look and match colourful galaxy patterns to see how fast they’re moving away. Our scientists will help you make simple measurements, and there’s also a chance to create a badge to take home. Suitable for ages 7 and over.

a hand holds a pile of coins attached to a small lightbulb

Penny Power Lab

Discover how everyday coins can spark real electricity. In this hands‑on activity, you’ll build your very own mini battery using copper pennies, aluminium foil, paper and salty water. Stack the pieces in the right order and watch as your tiny power pack comes to life, strong enough to light up a small LED or show a voltage on a meter. A brilliant starter activity for curious young engineers. Suitable for all ages.

some hands hold mulitcoloured pipecleaners looking like a spider

The Little Learners Experience

Discover how babies’ and children’s brains make sense of the world through amazing virtual reality experiences and hands‑on fun. Step into VR to hear music the way someone with hearing loss or a cochlear implant might, or how a baby hears sounds from inside the womb. Get involved in our detective game and see if you can reveal the hidden objects or make your own secret message! Meet researchers from Lancaster University’s Infant and Child Development Group and explore how young minds learn. Afterwards, get creative with colouring and crafting your own pipe‑cleaner neurons. Suitable for all ages.

a group of children, one of whom wears a minecraft cap, play on ipads

Minecraft Adventures in Wordsworth's World

Discover Minecraft like you’ve never seen it before with Lancaster University's Library and Litcraft - a project that turns real places and literature into Minecraft worlds you can explore. Step into a blocky Lake District inspired by the poet William Wordsworth, who wrote poems about his outdoor adventures. Use iPads to roam custom landscapes, try challenges based on diary entries and poems, and explore a Minecraft version of the place where he lived, Dove Cottage. Then get building with magnetic blocks or colouring sheets. A brilliant stop for gamers, readers and curious creators of all ages.

a green snake

The Sssscience of Sssnakes

Sssssslither into the world of sssnakes and decide whether these scaly stars are venomous villains or misunderstood mambas. Step into the Snake Lab to handle 3D printed fangs, a robot snake and try bite testing with fake blood. See if you’re as long as a python with our ssssnake length ropes, then aim like a spitting cobra using water gun targets. Play giant Snakes and Ladders, enjoy finding out lots of fun facts, have a go at spiral snake crafts, challenges and colouring. Suitable for all ages.

people put organs on a paper outline of a person

Move, Make and Feel Great

Jump into a mix of fun activities all about keeping your body and brain happy. Fold calming mindfulness origami, make your own healthy‑eating plates with cut‑and‑paste food pictures, and try placing organs on a giant body poster. Explore cool careers in medicine and play with our pretend X‑ray and scanning machine that shows instant ‘results’. With loads to try, it’s a brilliant stop for all ages.

a boy in workout clothes shows off his arm muscles

Muscles in Motion

Get ready to stretch, squeeze and explore what your amazing muscles can do. Try a simple test to see if you might be missing a forearm muscle (which is totally normal), attach model muscles to mini skeletons to see how bodies move, sculpt your own muscles from playdough to stick onto bones, and even paint the muscles on your body if you want! Older visitors can take on the Muscle Trivia Challenge, packed with fun facts about how muscles work. Suitable for all ages to discover the super strength inside every body.

a child wears a VR headset

See the Northern Lights… Right Here!

Ever wished you could watch the Northern Lights without leaving Morecambe? Step into a stunning virtual world where the sky comes alive with glowing greens, reds and purples. Using virtual reality, you’ll sit in a peaceful nature setting and see the aurora dance right above Lake Windermere. Discover how different gases make each colour shine and learn the science behind it all, inspired by research from Professor Jim Wild at Lancaster University. A magical, immersive experience for all ages.

a family is silhouetted against a sunset

Who Will Be in Your Family in the Future?

Get creative and imagine what your family might look like in the future. Using colourful circle templates, you can draw or write the people, pets and special things that feel like part of your family, whether they live with you or far away. It’s a fun way to think about who matters to you and how families change. Younger visitors can make bright family circles, while older ones can share thoughts and memories on a message board. Suitable for all ages.

children hold out microbits to the camera

Crack the micro:bit Challenge

Drop in as a family and explore how the micro:bit - a tiny programmable device - can spark creativity and problem‑solving. Take on a fun digital challenge and try simple coding experiments inspired by a tool that has helped 70 million children in 85 countries become young creators. Discover more about it, come up with your own ideas for how it could be used in research, and meet the Lancaster University researchers who were recently honoured with the nation’s highest education award for the micro:bit, presented to them by the King and Queen. Suitable for ages 7 and over.

Fab morning for all ages! Everyone was super friendly and kind!

A quote from Feedback from a Campus in the City visitor

Campus in the City 2025

Two days, three venues, and more than 30 family activities – Campus in the City 2025 brought Lancaster University’s research to you! From virtual reality and AI demonstrations to a teddy bear hospital, clay modelling, Chinese Calligraphy, a forensic science escape room and so much more. Thank you to everyone who joined us – relive the highlights and see if you can spot yourself!

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See what we got up to at Campus in the City in previous years