Robots dancing to music, VR experiences, battling robots, and drone aerial soccer took turns on stage... On September 26, the 2026 Songjiang District National Science Popularization Month main venue event "Sci-Tech Innovation Carnival" kicked off lively at Kaiyuan Mediterranean Commercial Plaza, allowing residents to have "zero-distance" contact with scientific knowledge in a leisure and entertainment setting.
At the event, in the "Future Exploration Zone," curious residents crowded around the AI robot and VR experience areas, with children reaching out to interact with robotic dogs; the "Science and Art Workshop Zone" placed technology and craftsmanship on the same route: 3D printing pens pulled flat thinking into three-dimensional space, "Century-Old Sugar Charm" relied on temperature and touch to let sugar liquid solidify into shapes, and rubbing fortune cards printed traditional New Year flavor onto paper. The organizers said this layout was designed to make science "touchable, experienceable, and takeaway-able."
The science performance show was the most popular. In the smoke air cannon, a balloon membrane squeezed air out of the opening, forming a rotating "vortex ring"; in the liquid nitrogen mushroom cloud, extremely cold liquid nitrogen instantly boiled and vaporized when meeting hot water. The performance advanced according to "visual impact—principle explanation—on-stage hands-on operation," with science popularization experts explaining concepts such as Bernoulli's principle and Leyden jar discharge in plain language, then inviting children on stage to operate them personally. "After applying special foam on my hands, I could resist flames, which let me feel the power of chemistry," said Guo Chenye, a child who participated in the experience.
Beyond the main venue of the science performance show, the "N" grassroots activities of Science Popularization Month have spread across the entire Songjiang area. All 17 towns and streets in the district are coordinated, relying on the "Benefiting the People Science Popularization Express" menu-style ordering to form a four-level network of "business district—school—community—countryside"; 54 science popularization bases at all levels, 17 community academies, and 3 science and technology backyards are open to residents. Meteorology and electricity science popularization entered campuses; Songjiang Science and Technology Museum launched the "From Cutting-Edge Intelligent Manufacturing to People's Livelihood" science innovation and popularization themed exhibition around the achievements of academician expert workstations; the Jiuting Town Science Association opened natural science popularization courses in Jiuke Green Oasis. For different school stages, this year also launched 3 localized study routes: a high school cultural education journey, a middle school digital empowerment journey, and an elementary school ecological science popularization journey, and carried out 10 cutting-edge science popularization reports and scientist spirit lecture activities.
Children experience small electric devices. At present, Science Popularization Month is still ongoing, with nearly 40 subsequent grassroots characteristic activities to be implemented, and the number of participants is expected to exceed 100,000. "This year's Songjiang National Science Popularization Month, we created a three-dimensional science popularization activity matrix," said Yao Jin, head of the Science Popularization Department of the District Science and Technology Commission and Science Association. Songjiang has already built a three-level coordinated system of "venues as core output, business districts as traffic entrances, and communities as last-mile implementation." The next step will be to deepen four aspects of coordination among city and district, district and town, museum and school, and museum and enterprise, promoting more cutting-edge achievements from the G60 Science and Technology Innovation Corridor to "walk" out of laboratories and into residents' daily lives.