Operation Ouch! Food, Poo and You at the Science and Industry Museum

Step inside the fascinating world of the digestive system and enjoy some seriously stinky science at Operation Ouch! Food, Poo and You at the Science and Industry Museum, running from July 2023 – June 2024.

Bringing the hit CBBC television series to reality in Manchester, Dr Chris, Dr Xand and Dr Ronx are embarking on an important mission to find out exactly what happens to the food in our bodies when we eat. Expect to be shrunk, chewed, mashed, swallowed, squeezed and spat out of Dr Xand’s digestive system in this wild and rather wonderful adventure through the fascinating human body!

You can look forward to a range of fun hands-on activities to explore how our organs work together to maintain a healthy digestive system. Discover the process of food breakdown, how our bodies fight against harmful bacteria, and you will even get a chance to try your hand working on the poo-duction line, moving waste through the large intestine and out the other end… yuck!

After your absolutely disgusting journey through the digestive system, it’s time to learn some more fascinating facts about, well, digestion! Young people live with all sorts of digestive conditions, and here, you can learn about these inspiring people, and find out about the medicine used to help and treat them. As well as this, you’ll get to explore the museum’s collection and meet Larry the Vomiting Robot, a true hero who helped scientists understand the distribution of norovirus particles – thank you Larry!

There will also be a series of special events as part of the exhibition programme, including accessible sessions and Experitots events for our youngest visitors, and of course feel free to explore the museum in its entirety (once you’ve been chewed up, swallowed down, and spat out of course!). Hopefully you won’t feel too queasy after all that pooey fun…