There is a place in Belgrade where a robot decorates your coffee, where you could spend the night “on the way to the Moon,” and where the most serious research audience consists of preschool and elementary school children. And if you were to say this is science fiction—you would not be right. But this truly scientific and truly fantastic story begins on the fifth floor of the Palace of Science, in the Children’s Science Corner (conveniently abbreviated as CSC).

Before we go up to the fifth floor, it is worth stopping at the corner of two streets. The Palace of Science is located at the intersection of Kralja Milana and Kneza Miloša Streets, in the building of the former Adriatic-Danube Bank. It is one of those Belgrade buildings you have passed a thousand times without knowing what was being prepared behind its façade. And until December 2024, when the Palace of Science officially opened, a great deal had indeed been in preparation. An area of approximately 5,500 square meters was transformed into Serbia’s first center for scientific research and science popularization, precisely on the centenary of the building itself.

To be clear, the CSC is only one floor of a much larger offering. At the Palace you will find:

• a permanent exhibition with more than 30 interactive exhibits about humans, Earth, technology, and space;
• a 36-seat planetarium with 360-degree projections featuring stories about the mysteries of the universe;
• a science café where a robot can—quite literally—serve you coffee, as well as a bookstore and restaurant;
• but also real science: 20 scientific centers, 19 of which were established in cooperation with the Faculty of Electrical Engineering, while the twentieth is the RTS Materials Digitization Center.

In other words: while children on the fifth floor are getting to know robots, robotics is actually being researched on the floors below. And that is exactly what makes the Palace of Science such a special place: science is both popularized and seriously pursued at the same time.

Now let’s go upstairs, to the fifth floor.

The Children’s Science Corner is intended for preschool children aged 5 to 7 and is designed to introduce them to the “magical world of science” through play. Together with their parents and experienced educators, young scientists explore interactive exhibits in programming, robotics, geology, art, and other STEM fields.