Nova Making Stuff Series

Introduction

The series title 'Making Stuff' is an incredible TV show. The show is put into different series each of which persuades viewers to make a difference in their everyday life by actually doing scientific and engineering tasks meant to make us 'active doers'. To promote the program, NOVA partnered with schools, museums, universities, businesses and many other institutions. Using these platforms, the series intend to inculcate in its viewers an energy for creativity. Local and regional outreach coalitions will create opportunities for youth, families, educators, and engineers and scientists to explore materials science. In this paper, I summarize two of the episodes of Making Stuff series.

Making Stuff: Stronger

Over the past few decades, multiple improvements have benefited the world, from new discoveries, to genetic research. At our current rate, we can expect much in the future. Around 150 years ago, the Bezheimer Process allowed for the first 'Industrial-Scale' production of Steel. Until that moment, the usage of steel as a building material seemed preposterous, when given today's society, we see steel in use everywhere in the world. Given the advanced properties of Kevlar and Steel alone, it is remarkable on how something that was discovered a long time ago (Kevlar being the recent and one of the main exceptions) is only practical on large scales. Although we have the advancements of Nanocarbon, and on a similar page, "Bukkeyballs (A Pure-Carbon mineral, that resembles the shape of a "Soccer Ball", and is magnetic)", we can only use them in an experimental stage, until we are able to use it in mass-production, to benefit Mankind (Pogue (a), 22:20).

Already though, advancements are occurring at a remarkable rate. Thirty years ago, the Apple Macintosh brought the dream of "Home Computers" to life. Computers back in the 60's and 70's had little computing power, compared to what our computers have today. Back when the first computer had 12 Kilobytes of memory, with many now using Terabytes as the standard for a hard drive. And even in the past 10 years, our technology capability has grown exponentially, and what seemed like a dream is now reality. Given the advances that we have discovered experimentally to create virtually unbreakable materials, the near future has endless opportunities, towards discoveries and advances for mankind.

Throughout history, multiple inventions' use today is completely different then what it was originally developed for. Gunpowder was considered to be a medicine and aphrodisiac, ...