Congrats to the group for being awarded 2nd place at Engineering Expo for their exhibit, “Playing with Plastics: How Scientists Make Meaningful Materials”

The Boydston group participated in the Engineering Expo hosted at UW-Madison by presenting an exhibit called “Playing with Plastics: How Scientists Make Meaningful Materials.”

The exhibit included interactive demonstrations featuring 3D printing, active experiments, and real-world examples, to help participants understand plastics all the way down to the atomic scale! Also, sneak a peek into the future of plastics through demonstrations with shape-memory, light-responsive, and self-healing materials.

Our thermoplastics demos/board include:

• extrusion 3DP (how it works, pros & cons, etc.)
• spiropyran PCL panel tic-tac-toe with laser pointer (poster will have structure, UV and mechanical activation explanation)
• packing peanut dissolution (comparison between PS and “green” peanuts)
• thermochromic prints
• examples of common thermoplastics

Our thermosets demos/board include:
• resin 3DP (how it works, pros & cons, etc.)
• borax slime (handouts with chemical structures, explanation of crosslinking of polymer chains)
• examples of common thermosets

This year, we placed second among research groups out of 50 total exhibits and were awarded $500! We’ll definitely get 1st place next year!