THE MELODIES OF MATERIALS

Recently, I was invited to explore the Georgia Tech Materials Innovation and Learning Laboratory (MILL), a student-run space that allows undergrads to get down to the nitty-gritty of materials science and engineering. What’s unique about the MILL is that it’s not just a makerspace. Students aren’t just engaged in the act of creation while they’re working at the MILL; they’re also learning how to examine, analyze, and investigate the structure and characteristics of the materials they’re working with all the tools you’d find in a research lab.

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A Closer Look at Materials

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We started our tour in the characterization room, where we saw some of the tools used to characterize materials on microscopic levels. A tool that interested me was the optical profilometer, which could produce a 3D visual map of a surface. Our guide told us that this device can produce much detail and detect even something as small as etched lettering on the side of a penny. We also learned about Fourier-transformed infrared spectroscopy (FTIR), which uses infrared absorption to detect chemical bonds and better understand polymers.

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Maybe the most impressive instrument was a scanning electron microscope, or SEM, which I used during my ASM Eisenman Materials Camp experience and my Rice University internship. While typical optical microscopes use light to generate their images, SEMs utilize electrons, imaging material surfaces in far greater detail than a standard optical microscope is capable of.

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Putting Materials to the Test

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Mechanical properties were the next stop on the tour, and for some odd reason, one of our experiments was a good old plastic grocery bag. Following an introduction to stress-strain curves and how to measure elastic modulus, we were supplied with two strips of plastic and told to stretch them apart. One was an order of magnitude more pliable, or easier to tear and stretch, than the other. It was a simple indication of the fact that properties of a material can depend on direction. Polymers are also susceptible to very different results depending on the direction of their chains at the time of processing. It was very intriguing to have a concept typically explained with line graphs and molecular structures demonstrated with a grocery bag.

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Our last location was a processing area where we looked at the various 3D printing filaments and compared the relatively stiff PLA material to the flexible TPU filament. We talked about the consequences of differences in molecular structure and molecular interaction and how they end up making PLA very different from TPU. 

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Looking Ahead

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What I liked most about the mill was how it reminded me how approachable material science is. The students guiding us didn't just give us descriptions of instruments that they had learned about. They knew the equipment and demonstrated to people how to operate them. In college, I hope to continue studying materials science and engineering, and this kind of student-centered learning experience was really exciting to me. A brief tour like this allowed me to have a clearer picture of what studying materials science and engineering would be like, and it emphasizes the importance of hands-on learning for learning material. But until dhin . . . stay upbeat, and stay tuned.

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Sources + where you can learn more:

1. https://mill.mse.gatech.edu/about-us/