There is a new material being developed that will help improve electronics performance, battery life and structure. The new material is called Graphene. Graphene is a material that comes from carbon, the building block of life. Graphene is structured in a two-dimensional or flat honeycomb lattice that looks like a beehive. It was discovered that graphene conducts electricity better than any other material known to man.
This means that graphene can replace metals like gold and copper inside all of our electronics. Another way that graphene is better is that it is more flexible than gold or copper. This would allow for new electronics that are flexible and have different structures than what we are used to. To top it all off, graphene is the lightest and strongest material known to man. This means that graphene could also be used to make things stronger without making them heavier. For example, graphene can be used in the body of airplanes to make them lighter and thus use less fuel.
Currently there are three ways to make graphene; Press scotch tape to a graphite rock and stick tape together until the graphite becomes extremely thin, bake polymers/plastics made of carbon until they break up and rearrange and then stamping the graphene onto something, lastly is to catalyze/break apart natural gases like methane that contain carbon and allowing the carbon to settle into a metal like copper like salt settles onto ice and then decomposing the copper and leaving the graphene. Currently researchers are finding the best way to make large amounts of graphene.
Students will review current, polarity, and complete and incomplete circuits. They will learn how graphene conducts electricity and design and build their own buzzing alarm around a structure with the battery far away from the buzzer.
This Guide provides the instructor information on how to run the design challenge with alternatives for materials and test setups as well as information to help make the design challenge a good educational experience.