The Milne Lecture Series

We hosted 220 primary school pupils from four local schools as they took part in fun activities that introduce pupils to the nanoworld. They were held at the School of Engineering over four days, giving pupils an opportunity to see what life is like at the University. Activities were developed by Professor Themis Prodromakis and delivered by the Centre for Electronics Frontiers.

The programme was made up of three stages:

1. Observe: microscope challenge

   Pupils worked together to guess what part of an insect they were observing using a microscope. This allowed the pupils to observe the structures of different parts of insects that are hard to see with the human eye, they understood how these structures aided the insect with feeding, moving, and seeing.

2. Make: photolithograpy

   Pupils had the opportunity to understand what it is like to work in a clean room, like our own engineers do in our Scottish Microelectronics Centre (SMC). They wore protective coveralls, safety spectacles, face masks, and gloves before they moved on to the photolithography area where our brilliant PhD students helped them put masks on microscope slides, imprint a design on the slide using UV light, and develop the design using developing solution. The pupils got to take away their slides to show friends and family at home!

3. Design: design activity

   Pupils were given the chance to design their own masks for photolithography. They came up with lots of inventive designs and our engineers will make some of these into real masks!

Feedback from the schools showed that the workshops improved the pupil's understanding of the nanoworld, as well as their understanding of what engineers do. Not only did their understanding improve, but the pupils also ‘enjoyed dressing up in the white suits’ and ‘loved creating designs on their microscope slides and using microscopes to view insects’. Pupils said this was ‘the best trip in primary six’ and there was ‘tons of things to try out’.