Engaging the Public at CampusFest 2026

At this year's CampusFest on May 21, 2026, the Mechanical Behavior of Materials lab turned sweet snacks into hands-on materials science. Under the motto "Snack Science: How tough is your gummy bear?", we were thrilled to welcome numerous guests to our booth.

We can look back on a highly successful day. It was fantastic to see how much our interactive exhibit attracted visitors. We were especially pleased to welcome so many families, as well as an incredible range of age groups. They all brought not only an appetite for gummy bears and other sweets, but above all, a great thirst for science.

The centerpiece of our exhibit featured Charpy impact tests on the candies, conducted at both room and low temperatures. This playful experiment provided the perfect opportunity to explain the core focus of our research in an accessible way: the mechanical behavior of materials varies significantly depending on temperature and the speed at which a force is applied.

What could be impressively demonstrated with gummy bears at our booth is exactly what we research on a much more complex level in the lab. Our research group is developing new experimental methods to capture precisely these material-specific transitions at the nanoscale. This research enables a fundamental understanding of material properties and contributes significantly to the development of safer applications. In this context, we were also able to introduce visitors to our current ERC project, NanoHighSpeed, which investigates this high-speed damage at the smallest scales.

A heartfelt thank you goes out to all the members of our lab who managed the booth with so much dedication and brought the experiments to life. Another highlight, and a special thanks, goes to the university mascots who visited our booth and brought even more excitement to the event!

We thank all our guests for their great interest and are already looking forward to next time!