Green Man offered a fantastic opportunity to engage with a diverse audience of all ages, from families to music enthusiasts. Visitors were interested in discovering what composite materials are, how they work, and why they are useful. Many were particularly intrigued by our spinning wind-energy demonstrators, which sparked conversations about the current state of wind energy in the UK and the modern-day challenges involved in wind turbine design.
Professor of Aerospace Structures Ben King-Sutton-Woods said "This outreach work is so incredibly and beautifully rewarding because it forces a perspective change on our research, to focus not on citations, but excitations. It allows us to see what resonates with the public, and to iterate in real time the way we communicate the purpose and value of our work. It is useful for raising awareness in the public of the value of engineering, but also great communications training for the outreachers and a buoyant and aligning force - reminding us who we are doing this for."
We gratefully acknowledge the support of the European Research Council funded NEUROMETA project, which develops sustainable metamaterials based on bio-based and natural materials. By combining these renewable resources with advanced material architectures, NEUROMETA aims to create environmentally friendly metamaterials with intelligent, adaptive behaviours inspired by neural networks.
We would also like to thank the BladeUp project for their support. BladeUp is a UKRI funded Prosperity Partnership between the University of Bristol, Vestas, and LMAT, working to transform how wind turbine blades are designed and manufactured.