ASM Summer Camps - 2022

And, we're back!

And you should sign up!

Not that we ever entirely went away, but the in-person versions of the ASM Materials Science camp for teachers in back for the summer of 2022. 

If you need a little convincing that the summer camps are awesome - easily the best professional development that I've ever taken - check out the stories and testimonials that I've posted on the blog in the past.

The camps start in early June and run through August. 

They cost nothing...not a single dime...not a cent.

You'll get to do thirty labs that fit into physical science, life science, material science, middle school science, elementary science, math, English, or even art courses. I can personally say that I've had teacher campers from all of those disciplines.

You'll get to see another thirty or so demonstrations.

You'll get take-home materials to do quite a few of the labs back in your classroom.

You'll get lunch and snacks provided for all five days of camp.

You'll get to visit a local material science either university or industry location and connect with university and industry professionals in your area.

You'll get the opportunity to complete two grad credit hours for $250 at the end of the week.

And if you sign up for the Salt Lake City camp or the Princeton camp or the virtual camp from July 11-15, you'll get to hang out with me either in person or virtually.

If you're interested in the camps, check out the ASM Foundation website to sign up.

Are solid objects really solid?

I am coming to love Alpha Phoenix's videos more and more with each video. He explores concepts that are often ridiculously subtle until you think about them a little more deeply, and he uses them to explain the details of the materials around us.

In this video he asks how long it would take for a force - a hammer hit in this case - on one end of a bar of steel to be felt on the opposite end of the bar. It's something that seems obvious at first because a push on one end of a steel bar is 'immediately' felt at the other end of the bar. That's true on the scale of a bar a couple of feet long and with the time scale that you and I notice things, but Alpha Phoenix uses far faster measurements than his eyes and proves that the force isn't felt 'immediately' on the other end.

And then he explains why this happens using magnets and springs representing the particles within a solid and does it brilliantly.

Now I just want him to make more of his videos. At his current pace, he's putting out a video a month or so which leads to high quality videos, but I just want more of them.

3 Easy Recycled Plastic Projects | Recycling for Beginners

Last week I posted a couple of videos from these guys and commented that their set-up looked a little advanced for me.

The above video is a lot more my speed, true beginner stuff there. That's closer to the skills and tools that I have.

And if I scale this up, here's a video on how I might want to organize things...if...

Beginners' Guide to Melting HDPE - How to Make a Recycled Plastic Pen

I love this process...melting (technically it's softening not melting) HDPE on a panini press between parchment paper (they call it greaseproof, but that's parchment in the US)  and pressing it into a mold looks like something I could maybe actually do.

So I started collecting lids since the beginning of the year. I don't have nearly enough, though, so I'm going to have to expand my collecting efforts.

Clearly their processing has gotten much, much fancier as the jewelry making video shows. They're on to injection molding, oven melting, and machined aluminum molds.

I'm thinking I'm a ways away from that, but I want to try this next year with my students.

5 Ways Biology Is Transforming Buildings

Evolution has reached some pretty outstanding solutions to environmental challenges. It's sort of the ultimate in the fail fast philosophy of engineering. Every mutation is an iteration, and natural selection easily sorts out which designs to pursue. And natural selection has come up with some pretty ingenious solutions.

This video goes through five of those natural solutions and how material scientists are trying to mimic those solutions.

• "Sweat gland cement" - looks at cement blends that contain reinforcing fibers and APP-PER-EN. As the temperature of the modified cement rises, the fibers melt (absorbing energy) then the APP-PER-EN foams and releases gasses to put out fires. Weirdly I can't find anything on the web searching for that APP-PER-EN and cement. I'd appreciate a link to more info if anybody can find it.
• "Polar bear heating" - considers the white fur/black skin combination of polar bear coats. The black skin absorbs heat allowing them to maximize the absorption of heat energy, even leaving them invisible to infrared cameras. German scientists are using a similar idea to adjust the thermal absorption of heat energy for passive solar heating.
• "Homeostasis facades" - are based around muscle fibers expand and contract to regulate heat in the muscles. The facades would be two layers of glass with polymer between them that would expand - blocking sunlight - as they heat up and contract - allowing more sunlight in - as they cool.
• "Mantis shrimp cement" - sees Purdue scientists studying mantis shrimp claw material with its linear structure formed in spiral layers that work as crack arresters. The scientists used a 3d printed concrete structure and printed the layers in spirals similar to the mantis shrimp claw material.
• "Fish scale glass" - takes a look at laminated glass being made more similarly to how fish scales overlap each others. They etched two layers of laminated glass and laminated them together with the diagonal layers flipped to create a diamond-like pattern that makes the glass much stronger than leaving the etchings in the same direction.

What *REALLY* happens to 'Recycled' Glass?! - (you might be surprised)

I apologize for the clickbait video and post title today. I didn't write it and am typically loathe to reward anybody who does by pointing out their video.

Today's video tracks us through a glass recycling facility from breaking up the glass, sorting the metal caps and paper labels from the bottles, separating the different colors of glass via optical scanner, and then reusing the glass into glass insulation. 

Every step seems so simple, and the host even points out that human hands rarely touch the glass on the way through the sorting and recycling factory. That's impressive to me.

Explaining the Stress-Strain Curve with a Paperclip

Last week I said I was going to check out what else the Mat Sci Guy had posted, and I found the above video explaining the stress-strain curve 'with a paperclip'.

Again, be warned, his narration is less than exciting, and the level of science can be a little high for at least my students.

But the explanation of how a paperclip can demonstrate the stress-strain curve is really good. He breaks down the elastic and plastic deformation regions of the curve and explains how those changes are different on an atomic level using two-dimensional diagrams while showing that on a macroscopic level with an extra-, extra-large paperclip.

I appreciate him providing the explanation on the macroscopic, symbolic, and particulate levels, something we've seen within the AP chemistry as a recent push.

Oh, and there are fewer corny jokes in this week's video than in last week's. Other than the 'what is a paperclip used for' schtick at the beginning, it's a pretty straight forward video.