Year 7 and Year 8 would like to say a massive thank you to Dr Chris Hamlett (@hamlettcae) and all the team at Discovery Materials (@discovmaterials) for allowing us to borrow their impact tester. The pupils had been consolidating their learning about ceramics, polymers and composites by making mudbricks with different additional materials and quantities of water. They had to choose between just mud, mud and paper discs, mud and sawdust, mud and cloth or mud and hay. These were then left to air dry before subjecting them to the “guillotine style” action of the impact tester. The pupils loved it and competed fiercely against each other to make the strongest brick. Once they discovered hay was the better material, they were able to liken this to the rationale behind putting rebar in cement and could even discuss the differences between compressive stress and tensile strength. A fantastic time was had by all which would not have been possible if we did not have the very generous loan of the impact tester from Discovery Materials. Thank you again!
