The age homogeneity in the student groups is easily observed, yet the groups do not mix. Each one follows their respective teachers at the entrance of the Main Building, Técnico – Alameda campus. After check-in, the journey to explore the materials can begin.
Sofia Barbeiro, president of the Materials Engineering Student Group (NEMat) welcomes the participants in the Large Lecture Hall 1 (GA1) and, later on, will teach them to identify the age of cork. Beforehand, other questions need to be answered: “What is materials engineering?”, “What types of materials do you know?”, “Any examples?”. Although there are teachers in the audience, she leads the class. She requests silence and organises students randomly into groups. Some groups start by visiting the Técnico Students’ Organisations fair, in the Main Building’s hall. Others participate in the different experiments included in this year’s edition of “Explora os Materiais”, which takes place from 13th to 16th February.
The old bulletproof vest causes a furore among the students of Ourém Secondary School. Ana Antunes shows the bullets that didn’t perforate her, proving that “kevlar” is a material that can withstand their impact.
They are very curious and want to touch everything: the glass fibre (cutting), the gallium that turns into a liquid with the heat of the skin, the liquid nitrogen that allows breaking a rubber band with a hammer. They keep stepping on the honeycomb structure.
“Don’t believe in magicians, this is all science”, advises the Técnico student Eduarda Álvaro, as she presents the “super sponge” polymer (Sodium Polyacrylate, a material that absorbs 400 to 800 times its weight in water). Afterwards, her colleague Luís Aser stresses “magic is the science not explained”. Once science was explained, the magic remained until the last stop of this saga. A model of Peter Pan is produced, layer by layer, in a 3D printer.
“Explora os Materiais” is an initiative organised by NEMat. “The event aims to show the wide range and versatility of Técnico’s Materials Engineering course, through practical and dynamic experiments”, explains one of the event’s coordinators, Alda Pereira. During four days, the event welcomed more than 1200 secondary school students from different parts of the country, who accepted the challenge of exploring the difference between magic and Materials Engineering science.
