This hands-on activity walks through paper chromatography, a technique used by chemists to separate mixtures or in forensic crime analysis to investigate evidence. Paper chromatography can be applied outside of the lab too! Here, we use the method to show what types of dyes make up different colored markers. Is purple truly made of red and blue?
Large oil spills have been a common environmental problem for decades affecting wildlife, beaches and water sources. Environmental engineers have come up with many creative solutions to clean up these spills. WPI Engineering Ambassadors will tell you about some of these solutions and then you can try to clean up your own oil spill at home
From airplanes and spaceships to balloons and frisbees, flight is an important part of today’s society. This activity builds and experiments with bottle rockets, the perfect model for investigating what aerospace engineering is all about. After reviewing how to build the bottle rocket, this video details a setup you can use to test what forces, materials, and designs maximize airtime. So at the end of the day, here’s the question: how high can you fly?
Every year, thousands of people are killed or maimed because of land mines. Countless acres of land can’t be used to grow food because they are littered with these deadly mines. Researchers at Worcester Polytechnic Institute (WPI) are working on a robotic solution that would be inexpensive enough for small towns and organizations to use. The project uses an autonomous robotic team – a rover that uses a metal detection system to detect the mine and a drone that will drop a payload on the mine to detonate it.
The dangerous process of dismantling large ship hulls often involves cutting down and recycling the ship’s infrastructure. According to US OSHA standards, ship breaking operations expose workers to a wide range of hazards or conditions likely to cause injury or illness. Learn how a group of WPI students worked together to develop a solution to improve worker safety in the ship-breaking industry by designing a prototype that displays the viability of a robotic approach to ship recycling.
Recycling is a key process for a sustainable future, and yet it is far from desired levels of efficiency. As mixed-stream recycling is the most common approach for domestic waste, the recycling industry heavily relies on the development of reliable waste sorting technologies. Robotic systems have remarkable potential for fulfilling this need and moving the industry to the next level.
We all love things that glow in the dark and a night time celebration isn’t complete without glow sticks, but have you ever wondered how they work? What exactly happens to make light appear when you bend the glow stick and hear that crack. Learn about chemiluminescence and the chemistry behind glow sticks!
Simulate the 3D food printing process through a simple activity, and compare your results to a real 3D food printer!
NASA uses robotic arms to explore places can’t visit yet, like Mars. Now it is your turn to design and build a Robo Arm that you can use to lift a cup off a table!
WPI’s High Power Rocketry Club leads students through a fun hands-on egg drop activity as well as an introductory discussion on momentum in rocketry!
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