A brand new service delivering explosions, electricity and scientific slime to curious kids across the world has launched out of the UK - and it's the brainchild of a true local.
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Science lover and entrepreneur Renee Watson is a Queanbeyan girl through and through, and her new service The Curiosity Box "lovingly curates a monthly science box filled with facts and fun for families to explore, question and discover."
Renee - now based in Oxford in the UK - raised £8,000 to fund the business via a Kickstarter campaign, and the first boxes were delivered in England in August.
But Aussie kids won't have to wait long for The Curiosity Box - the monthly subscription will be available to scientists down under in 2017.
"Being an entrepreneur is great because it's always an adventure," Renee said.
"You never know quite what you'll end up doing from day to day, and I'm constantly learning - like today I learned that stalking people on Twitter actually does pay off sometimes!"
Renee described launching the business - the recent Christmas box featured instant snow and levitating astro icecream - as "a very fast rollercoaster ride without a seatbelt".
"The box was my idea but I couldn't have come to it without my team - we had a Eureka moment when we realised no-one had done it before in the UK or Australia," she said.
Renee is the daughter of Ray Watson (managing director of Watson Blind and Awnings) and Janet Barling, an administration assistant at Queanbeyan Public School. She said she's been obsessed with science since she was a child.
"Everything I do is about making science accessible and awesome for everyone," she said.
"I will try my hand at pretty much anything to achieve that aim - so YouTube videos, radio, writing science pieces for the media, school workshops, science busking ... and taking science to places you wouldn't normally find it - like a pub!
"I have even toyed with the idea of doing a sciencey stand-up routine ... one day!"
The former St Clare's student proudly owns the title 'Head of Explosions' at The Curiosity Box, and is a regular on BBC Radio in Oxford, conducting experiments and dispelling science myths.
"I did my first interview with BBC in 2009 and have been making a mess of their studios with my experiments ever since," she laughed.
The Curiosity Box will launch in Australia in 2017, with new boxes boxes for 4-6 year old Curiositots and 12-14 year old thinkers also being launched in the New Year.
