Throughout the last two weeks, we learned a lot about metamaterials and the design process the graduate students in the lab go through to put their ideas to life. We also toured the pharmaceutical company Grifols and learned all about how they separate proteins from plasma and use the proteins in medicine to help sick patients. Both of these experiences gave us insight into industries we are interested in, and some of the most valuable pieces of information I took away from this experience came from talking to the senior scientists at Grifols about their journey to get where they are today.
Category: NCSU Nanomechanics and Nanoengineering Lab – Ava H, Joshua K, Hannah S
Day 8: The bowtie comes to life.
We finally got to print/make the design we chose. Even though the bowtie structure seems rather simple and repetitive, it was difficult to make, and it took us multiple tries. In a mold, we added layers and layers of polymer and used the hot plate to assist in solidifying the polymer. After a few redos and many, many layers of polymer, the structure was dipped in acetone and removed from the mold, and we were left with this thing: (this is where the image would go if the blog website wasn’t not letting put in a picture). Anyway, we didn’t have time to calculate the Poisson’s ratio, but we did find the measurements for it. When the structure was stretched in length by 0.1 cm, it also stretched in width by 0.05 cm.
Day 6: A new design
To start off, two of Dr. Zhu’s graduate students showed us what they were working on – one thing they had made was this worm-like structure that responds to light and scoots along like an inchworm. It is capable of travelling through narrow slots. After learning about the graduate students’ projects, we went on to make a new design of metamaterials: this one is a very intricate pattern that took about an hour to fully cut out. When stretched on its sides, the structure also expands up and down.
Day 5
Today was yet another asynchronous work day. The work that Dr. Zhu and his graduate students do in the lab is complicated, so when we do go to the lab, we often spend a bit of time researching metamaterials on our own with the graduate students there to help us with any questions we have. (This means we can do the same research from home almost just as well, and it’s a lot more convenient.) Anyway, we’ve been reviewing the academic paper that Dr. Zhu sent us and also looking at outside resources to figure out what metamaterial design we want to print. One option is the “bowtie” design which is like a hollow rectangular prism that buckles down so that it’s flat. However, the design that most interests me is this one design that is really hard (and slightly annoying) to fold correctly but turns out really cool: it starts as a zig-zag mess of folded paper and expands in not one but two directions into a jagged sheet of paper. I made an origami model of this design (see below for pictures). The next step (or at least an upcoming one) is rather exciting: we get to work with the graduate students to print the design that we end up choosing!
Day 4: Grifols Visit
We took a break from our usual WEP activities at NCSU to visit Grifols – a pharmaceutical company – in RTP. We were given a thorough tour of a model plasma donation center and the company’s R&D labs, but one of the many highlights of our visit has to be the discussion panel we had with some of the people who work there.
During that panel, we gained a good sense of what lab work was like – sometimes things go wrong in mysterious ways, but ultimately, the real thing that holds lab workers back are redundant federal regulations (and the like). We heard interesting stories of how the panelists ended up where they were: some of them thought that they wanted to become doctors, but found that they liked a more lab-based field of science. And they all seemed to truly enjoy what they do and were happy with it. This was especially refreshing to hear amidst the noisy pressures that coerce high schoolers to become doctors or lawyers in the pursuit of being in a good place in life.
I’m hoping to replace this image with one of us from the discussion panel, but we have to wait for our host to make sure she has the authorization to release the photos of us first. But as sort of a placeholder, here’s one of Grifols’ donor centers – Grifols’ work involves the use of plasma, so plasma collection/donation is an important part of their process!
Day 3
Today we worked asynchronously to research metamaterial design references and further understand the qualities of the surface. We have begun fabricating designs of our own on our computers/with paper folding that will hopefully be printed at the NSCU lab in the future.
Day 2: Exploration
Today was our first day exploring the lab on campus. We talked to the graduate about their projects and research and then dived into practicing making metamaterials of our own using paper origami.
Day 1: Introduction
We worked remotely today doing individual research into metamaterials and their applied uses in the industry, joining a Zoom at the end of the day to discuss what we’d learned and the next two weeks of the program. Dr. Zhu shared some resources to help us understand the structures of metamaterials from origami and kirigami patterns. We will replicate and experiment with the pattern for tomorrow, the ultimate goal being to design our own metamaterial structures.
Day 0: Before it all begins.
For WEP, Hannah, Ava, and I will be working with Professor Zhu at NC State to explore nanomaterials with a negative Poisson’s ratio, which means the materials expand when stretched rather than thinning.
Since every blog post needs a visual and we haven’t started WEP yet, I drew a smiley face (see below).
