About 3500 people, including many school pupils, attended a two-day science expo which ended at the University of Otago yesterday.
More than 20 Otago departments, other science groupings and the McDiarmid Institute for Advanced Materials and Nanotechnology, one of the country's centres of research excellence, took part.
The free-entry expo had proved a "fantastic success" and had focused on "What makes us Tick? Let's Tock", organisers said. It was run by the university as part of Dunedin's latest New Zealand International Science Festival.
Otago science divisional marketing and communications co-ordinator Rose Newburn said departments and other groupings had put a great deal of effort in to their lively interactive exhibits.
A new venue, the Link, near the university Information Services Building, had also proved successful.
The McDiarmid Institute had provided a display of "Nano-Materials Art" and postgraduate physics students set up, nearby, another intriguing exhibit.
This was a low bath filled with "oobleck"- a mysterious substance, in this case made from cornstarch and water.
Although liquid, it quickly becomes solid when pressure is applied, enabling people to walk across it without getting wet.