Students are introduced to the multidisciplinary field of material science. Through a class demo and PowerPoint® presentation, they learn the basic classes of materials (metals, ceramics, polymers, composites) and how they differ from one another, considering concepts such as stress, strain, ductile, brittle, deformation and fracture. Practical examples help students understand how the materials are applied, and further information about specific research illustrates how materials and material science are useful in space exploration. A worksheet and quiz are provided.

This resource is a video abstract of a research paper created by Research Square on behalf of its authors. It provides a synopsis that's easy to understand, and can be used to introduce the topics it covers to students, researchers, and the general public. The video's transcript is also provided in full, with a portion provided below for preview:

"For more than 5,000 years, metals and alloys have been formed in roughly the same way—propelling civilization from the Bronze Age to the Industrial Revolution and to the Aerospace Age. Now there’s a new technique on the horizon that could help us take another big leap forward. It’s called high-entropy alloying, and the latest Focus issue of the Journal of Materials Research showcases scientists’ and engineers’ latest efforts in understanding high-entropy alloys and their potential applications. Traditional physical metallurgy uses an element with attractive properties as a base, and adds small amounts of other elements to improve those and other properties. Over thousands of years, various elements have been used as the base: first copper, then iron, then one by one across the periodic table, until researchers developed the first titanium alloys in the 1950s. It’s a method that’s proven incredibly effective. But there are signs that the approach may be reaching its natural limit..."

The rest of the transcript, along with a link to the research itself, is available on the resource itself.

Introduction to Solid State Chemistry is a first-year single-semester college course on the principles of chemistry. This unique and popular course satisfies MIT's general chemistry degree requirement, with an emphasis on solid-state materials and their application to engineering systems.
Course Format
This course has been designed for independent study. It provides everything you will need to understand the concepts covered in the course. The materials include:

A complete set of Lecture Videos by Prof. Sadoway.
Detailed Course Notes for most video sessions, plus readings in several suggested textbooks.
Homework problems with solution keys, to further develop your understanding.
For Further Study collections of links to supplemental online content.
Self-Assessment pages containing quiz and exam problems to assess your mastery, and Help Session Videos in which teaching assistants take you step-by-step through exam problem solutions.

About OCW Scholar
OCW Scholar courses are designed specifically for OCW’s single largest audience: independent learners. These courses are substantially more complete than typical OCW courses, and include new custom-created content as well as materials repurposed from previously published courses. Learn more about OCW Scholar.

What do technology and innovation mean from Africa? This is the central question of this course, which tackles a double absence: Of the meanings and role of technology in African history, on the one hand, and of Africa's place in the global history of technology, on the other. This course alternates between technologies from outside and technologies from within Africa and their itineraries in everyday life, and it is designed to provide students with grounded understandings of technology in Africa for intellectual and action-oriented purposes.

This course introduces basic welding and cutting. Emphasis is placed on beads applied with gases, mild steel fillers, and electrodes and the capillary action of solder. Upon completion, students should be able to set up welding and oxy-fuel equipment and perform welding, brazing, and soldering processes.

Students learn how common pop culture references (Harry Potter books) can relate to chemistry. While making and demonstrating their own low-intensity sparklers (muggle-versions of magic wands), students learn and come to appreciate the chemistry involved (reaction rates, Gibb's free energy, process chemistry and metallurgy). The fun part is that all wands are personalized and depend on how well students conduct the lab. Students end the activity with a class duel a face-off between wands of two different chemical compositions. This lab serves as a fun, engaging review for stoichiometry, thermodynamics, redox and kinetics, as well as advanced placement course review.