Kierans Memories of Techniquest Glyndŵr

The world has shut down in the last few weeks and months. Lots of visitor attractions have closed due to Covid-19 and the threat it poses.

Most of these places are expecting to go back to their attractions after movement restrictions are lifted. Xplore! is a bit different, we were moving from our current site on Wrexham Glyndŵr University campus on the 20th of April.

It is now safe to say we will never again open the doors of our Glyndŵr Discovery centre. 

When we return we will be based in our brand new science centre in the heart of Wrexham and while that’s exciting and new it is a bit sad as well.

With that in mind we think it would be lovely to share some of our staff members feelings, emotions and memories.

Hi, I'm Kieran and I've been working at Xplore! (formerly Techniquest Glyndwr) since I was 17 

I grew up going on days out there with my family and have now worked there for the last seven years. I remember someone from Techniquest Glyndŵr coming to my high school to present a workshop on solar power… a few months later and I was learning the shows as an employee!

It’s been brilliant to actually present shows to some of my old teachers, and, recently, even to my tutor from my Masters course.

I was lucky enough to be working in centre on, what turned out to be, our last ever day of operations at our original site. Although, understandably, there was no fanfare or ceremony due to the sudden nature of the closure,

I did make sure to point out to the customers that day that they were the last to ever use this building.

It was nice for myself and the rest of the staff to know we had one more chance to explain some of our exhibits to our customers that day, which gave us a way to say a personal goodbye to our site, as well as comfort in knowing it would be the last time we’d ever have to clean the Mirror Maze.

Even stranger for me was saying goodbye to the science theatre, the place where we present shows to schools and the public every week, because the last show there actually took place a week before we took the decision to close the site early.

I first started presenting shows when I was seventeen and I was really nervous before my first show… presenting shows is now definitely my favourite part of the job, because I’ve grown in confidence so much in seven years at TQG.

Some personal show highlights for me were channelling my inner Heston

Blumenthal when making ice cream out of liquid nitrogen in my first ever show; demonstrating the world’s blackest material, and the world’s lightest solid in our Supermaterials show; getting to write and present my own science shows; and, of course, actually being allowed to put pretty much anything in a microwave!

I didn’t know it at time, but I had the privilege of presenting our last ever show at Glyndŵr.

I’m glad the last ever demonstration involved making lots of fire and lots of mess. I think this was a fitting note to go out on!