“It is very important for career orientation that students get out of school, see real things, meet real people, so we were happy to be invited by BME” – said György Iván, teacher of the Apáczai Csere János Practical High School of ELTE, in response to a question from bme.hu at the latest Tech Day event at the Department of Polymer Engineering of the Faculty of Mechanical Engineering.

For more than a year, the BME Circle of Supporters and Friends (MTBK) has been organising events for high school students. At Apáczai, seeds of knowledge are certainly sown upon the right kind of soil. According to György Iván, not only those who have achieved good results in chemistry competitions, but also the rest of the students are open to natural sciences (notwithstanding the fact that the school is particularly strong in this direction, with chemistry, physics, biology and geography being present with an increased number of classes in the curriculum).

That László József Varga, doctoral student and head of the extrusion laboratory, was also pleased with the attention of the attendees was evident from the fact that he made a comment at one point,

“If university students asked such good questions, I would be a very happy man.”

At the time, interest was focused on the mysteries of foil making, but it was no less popular when Ákos Pomázi, head of the laboratory, passed around a piece of foil, explaining the excellent properties of composite materials, saying “if you break it with your bare hands, you get a chocolate”. There were no practicing strong man among the Apáczai students, so the lab manager kept the chocolate in exchange for a combustion test on recyclable cross-linked resin.

Doctoral student Péter Sántha continued with quasi-static and dynamic tensile tests on fibreglass and carbon fibre specimens, followed by a ballistic test with a drop spear. Meanwhile, we learned from Csenge Zsuzsa Simon, née Kádár, secretary of the MTBK Association, that the laboratory has already developed a bulletproof vest for the Counter Terrorism Centre. Associate professor András Suplicz presented the operation of the injection moulding machine, doctoral student Ákos Görbe introduced the rubber industry lab, while doctoral student Péter Széplaki gave a short presentation on 3D printing.

The guests then proceeded to Building T, where Balázs De Rivo talked about how he uses his degree from the Department of Polymer Engineering at Zoltek Zrt., a company with an interest in carbon fibre production. During his university years, he studied composites in Bordeaux, Poland, the Czech Republic and Finland – and his master thesis was on the design and construction of a carbon fibre bicycle frame. Zoltek is one of the best-known producers of carbon fibre, including fibres for wind turbine blades.

The next Tech Day could be in autumn, but it is not yet known which schools will join with another group to ask questions that put university students to shame.

gp