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SUMMARY:Experiments in multidisciplinary materials research - Professor Ma
 rk Miodownik\, University College London
DTSTART:20140207T143000Z
DTEND:20140207T160000Z
UID:TALK50407@talks.cam.ac.uk
CONTACT:Ms Helen Gardner
DESCRIPTION:In March 2013 we opened the Institute of Making\, a place dedi
 cated to promoting the study of materials and making with University Colle
 ge London. The institute is a multidisciplinary research club for those in
 terested in the made world: from makers of molecules to makers of building
 s\, synthetic skin to spacecraft\, soup to diamonds\, socks to cities. We 
 believe that materiality is central to all disciplines and activities\, an
 d our role is to be a central node in the university where discipline spec
 ialists can meet and collaborate. We recognise that a university is more t
 han a just community of scholars\, and staff of all kinds are both interes
 ted in research and can contribute to it. Thus membership is free to anyon
 e in the university from students to professors\, and from cleaners to fin
 ance directors. The institute contains a workshop\, materials library\, a 
 full set of tools from mechanical to electronic\, from textile and digital
 \, from playful to exact. We run seminars\, master-classes\, research sand
  pits\, but most importantly allow our members full use of the space to co
 nduct their own research projects. Since opening more than two thousand me
 mbers have joined from all parts of the university from architecture to ma
 terials science\, from anthropology to chemistry\, from archaeology to med
 icine. In this talk I discuss the research and the community that has grow
 n up in this new experimental space\, the kind of research that gets done\
 , and I reflect on our successes and our failures.
LOCATION:Department of Engineering - LR6
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