Quite an early start for a day themed around our environment sponsored by Amey.
We had been asked to present on Plastics - Superhero OR Supervillain!
So we decide to resurrect an old favourite using Polycaprolactone AKA POLYMORPH which is a thermo moulding biodegradable plastic.
These great little granules transform at about 62C into transparent, chewing gum looking, stretchy, wonderfully tactile strands that can be moulded into a huge range of things for hobbies, electronics, engineering and crafts.
We chose to make keyrings with a bit of added bling in the form of glitter.
We used silicon ice cube moulds and added a small key chain. There were quite a few creative folk who designed their own rather than use a mould - very inventive!
We started with a brief intro and discussion about why plastic has such a bad reputation and how we can help to reduce the energy and waste issue by recycling. So the challenge is to find a material like plastic but with none of the bad points - well we couldn't quite get rid of all the bad points but certainly the waste issue - a biodegradable plastic really helps.
Throughout the day we had 6 workshops so everyone in year 9 got to experience our presentation.
Once they got their hands on the polymorph and had a good play to discover just how it behaved they then used pre glittered moulds to make their bespoke keyring.
The school made us extremely welcome with a super lunch prepared by the in house catering staff.
We left the science team with a sample and all the little left over bits from the day so they should have good fun and a great introduction to polymers.
thanks for having us FHS
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