A mobile laboratory in a shipping container has been created in Dunedin to take science to rural people.

Students at Kaikorai Primary School gather around the Lab-in-a-Box on 13 October 2015. Credit: RNZ / Ian Telfer Genetics Otago director Peter Dearden stands in front of the lab at Kaikorai Primary School. Credit: RNZ / Ian Telfer Inside the mobile lab during its stop at Kaikorai Primary School. Credit: RNZ / Ian Telfer Six undergraduate science students will be travelling with the lab. Credit: RNZ / Ian Telfer Dr Dearden’s children cut the ribbon at the lab's opening. Credit: RNZ / Ian Telfer The Lab-in-the-Box is so large it needs electric winches to open its front door (not pictured). Credit: RNZ / Ian Telfer It packs down and closes up completely so it can be easily transported. Credit: RNZ / Ian Telfer The lab includes virtual-reality goggles, precision microscopes and a 3D printer. Credit: RNZ / Ian Telfer The idea behind the lab is to bring high-tech equipment to rural communities. Credit: RNZ / Ian Telfer Dr Dearden said he thought the lab was the first of its kind. Credit: RNZ / Ian Telfer The lab will tour nine regional towns around the bottom half of the South Island by Christmas. Credit: RNZ / Ian Telfer

The Lab-in-a-Box, launched yesterday at Kaikorai Primary School, was set up by an Otago University genetics director, Peter Dearden.

The project got a $150,000 grant from the government's Unlocking Curious Minds fund.

The fully-contained training laboratory in a blue shipping container is crammed with high-tech equipment, including virtual-reality goggles, precision microscopes, and a three-dimensional printer.

It's like a big, blue toy box, so large it needs electric winches to open the front door.

Dr Dearden said it was the first of its kind to be fully transportable by road or sea, and available for both school teaching and science experiments.

"There have been some equivalent things around the world, and a lab on a train in Australia, but I don't think anyone has tried a laboratory which really is a shipping container, so that you can take it anywhere you like," he said.

Photo: RNZ / Ian Telfer

After a week ensuring it can't be broken, the lab is expected to hit the road for its real purpose - taking science to rural communities.

There are plenty of good outreach programmes in which people come into universities, Dr Dearden said, but they do not work for people in remote areas like the West Coast or the Chatham Islands.

He said science needed to go out to the people who were the guardians of New Zealand's land and water.

Kaikorai Primary School principal Simon Clarke said the lab was a brilliant idea because primary schools did not have equipment like augmented reality glasses or electron microscropes.

He said the box came with six undergraduate science students who could unlock scientific concepts for the children.

The lab will tour nine regional towns around the bottom half of the South Island by Christmas.

The first rural stop will be the Catlins Area School in Owaka next Wednesday.