MAKING a Lego laser beam and a virus the size of a grapefruit – it's all in a day's work for these kids.

In a change from its usual offering of local art and history, Wantage's Vale and Downland Museum yesterday turned itself over to the wonderland that is Oxfordshire's scientific industry.

The museum invited the bright scientists from Harwell's Diamond Light Source lab to come and talk about their work.

The facility near Didcot is a massive particle accelerator which fires electrons around at incredible speeds which forces them to emit a light 10 billion times brighter than the sun.

Scientists then use this light in 'beam lines' to study tiny things in incredibly high detail like virus molecules.

Yesterday Dr Preeti Kaur showed six-year-old Alexander Conlon and Harry Ford, nine, how to build a diamond beam line out of Lego while Dr David Price introduced Ethan and Poppy Riddle, aged 11 and nine, to a giant foot and mouth disease virus.

Ethan and Poppy also got to try on some very cool shades which split the light into its spectrum of colours.

For more upcoming events at the museum go to wantage-museum.com