1. Choose a Topic
To get inspired while choosing a theme for your café, you can:
1. Read through the four episode descriptions:
Description of NOVA's “Making Stuff: Stronger”
The series begins with a quest for the world’s strongest stuff. David Pogue helps viewers understand what defines strength by testing the world’s strongest materials, ranging from mollusks, Kevlar®, and carbon nanotubes to the beak of the toucan and spider silk. He travels to the deck of a U.S. naval aircraft carrier, rides in a crash car in a demolition derby, and visits the country’s top research labs to check in with the experts who are looking to nature to create the next generation of strong “stuff.”
Description of NOVA's “Making Stuff: Smaller”
In the current information age, the triumphs of tiny are seen all around us: smaller transistors and microchips used in ever-shrinking laptops and cell phones. Now David Pogue takes viewers to an even smaller world, examining the latest in high-powered nanocircuits and microrobots that may one day hold the key to saving lives and creating materials from the ground up, atom by atom. He explores the star materials of small applications, including silicon—the stuff of computer chips and carbon—the element now being manipulated at the atomic level to produce future technology.
Description of NOVA's “Making Stuff: Cleaner”
Batteries grown from viruses, tires made from orange peel oil, and solar cells that cook up hydrogen—these are just a few of a new generation of clean materials that could power the devices of the future. In this episode, David Pogue explores the rapidly developing science and business of clean energy and the alternative ways to generate, store, and distribute it. He investigates the latest developments in bio-based fuels and in harnessing solar energy for our cars, homes, and industry in a fascinating exploration of the “stuff” of a sustainable future.
Description of NOVA's “Making Stuff: Smarter”
This episode looks into the growing number of materials that can shape themselves—reacting, changing, and even learning. For inspiration and ideas, scientists are turning to nature and biology and producing innovative developments in materials science. The sticky feet of geckos have yielded an adhesive-less tape. David Pogue literally swims with the sharks to understand bacteria-resistant sharkskin, which is being used to develop an antibacterial film. He also visits a scientist who has created a material that can render objects invisible.
2. Review some of the ideas listed below:
“Making Stuff: Stronger”
- Materials can be strong in different ways; for example, some possess high tensile strength while others have high compressive strength.
- Materials scientists test the strength of materials by stressing them to their breaking point.
- The strength of a material is determined by its molecular structure.
- Materials scientists have invented synthetic polymers that are stronger than natural polymers.
- How can stronger materials be lighter, cheaper, or better in other ways?
- How can we make existing materials stronger?
- How can we develop new, strong materials for specific applications?
“Making Stuff: Smaller”
- Materials scientists are building nanoscale materials—objects that we measure in nanometers, or billionths of a meter—to create amazing new technologies.
- What are the challenges of working on such a small scale?
- How do you make something that's the size of an atom?
- On the nanoscale, materials behave differently than we are used to.
- Nanotechnology has been around for a long time; stained glass windows from the Middle Ages were made using metal nanoparticles.
- Electronics seem to get ever smaller and more powerful. Is there a limit to how small they can get?
- How can nanotechnology revolutionize medicine?
“Making Stuff: Cleaner”
- Materials scientists are developing new, cleaner materials that are safer for the environment.
- How can we replace dirty materials with cleaner materials?
- Electric cars are cleaner than conventional petroleum cars. The challenge is to develop better batteries to store energy.
- Hydrogen fuel cells and biofuel are cleaner alternatives to petroleum.
- Waste materials, such as chicken feathers and plastic bags, can be transformed and repurposed into something valuable.
- Ecofriendly ingredients (such as orange oil, soy, or wheat) can replace petroleum in making products such as tires or plastic.
- Bioplastic, a material made of plant or animal matter, is cleaner because it breaks down more easily in the environment than petroleum-based synthetic plastics.
- Artificial photosynthesis converts the energy in sunlight into storable energy.
“Making Stuff: Smarter”
- Smart materials can sense and respond to their environments.
- Materials scientists are developing new, smart materials to help solve problems in engineering, medicine, and everyday life.
- Nature inspires the design of many smart materials.
- Smart materials can have lifelike reactions, such as healing.
- The shape of a material's surface is just as important as what it's made of.
- Smart fluids can be used to counteract unwanted movement.
- Shape-memory materials are smart materials that can be programmed to remember specific shapes.
- Metamaterials are revolutionizing the manipulation of light.
