3/14/2017 Caitlin McCoy
Written by Caitlin McCoy
Engineering Open House (EOH) is full of firsts for many, including students and visitors. March 10th and 11th, the first floor of the Materials Science and Engineering Building was full of visitors from a variety of ages and locations — all here to see exhibits Materials Science and Engineering (MatSE) students, mostly freshmen, had created. From the phases of chocolate to fake snow and everything in between, there was something for everyone to learn from and enjoy.
One exhibit created by freshmen was “Origami Gone Wild” — a very creative take on shape memory alloys. Gina Oshana is one of the students involved in this project, largely created as part of the MSE 183, Freshman Materials Laboratory, course.
“We’ve been working on this project since last semester,” Oshana said. “And since coming back from Winter Break, we’ve been building this project out.”
The origami projects’ poster explains one of the most useful shape memory alloys is called Nitinol, a metal alloy of nickel and titanium that contains both elements in roughly equal atomic percentages. “Shape memory” alloys indicates that after repetitive bending, the metal will revert to its original shape after applying heat. “With the application of heat, the Nitinol wire on the origami will fold while simultaneously bringing the [origami] crane to life,” the students’ poster states.
“At the end of the day, this project and EOH have been such a fun experience. We talk about wanting to be engineers in high school, and then we get the chance to build a project freshman year,” Oshana said. “We knew we’d have to talk to engineers and elementary students about this subject, so we settled on something colorful and fun for kids, but with the hard science behind it for the adults.”
For photos of MatSE exhibits at EOH, find us on Facebook and Instagram.