Magnations – Inspiring Future Generations

Members from the Magnetic Materials and Application research group (MAGMA) at Cardiff University Cardiff University have recently visited Mount Stuart Primary School to undertake a six-week magnetic materials animation course. As educationalists, the team at MAGMA are naturally passionate about educating future generations regarding magnetic materials, the way they are used in many everyday items and the important role they will play in the green economy. The team hope engaging with activities such as this will inspire future generations to engage in, or one day contribute to, the ground-breaking research into this key resource and help to develop South Wales as a hub for developments in the research, manufacturing and application of soft magnetics.

As part of the activities children had the opportunity to build their own simple motors, getting themselves into the mindset of engineers to overcome design issues and make the motors spin. The joy on the face of the children was incredible, demonstrating the awesome power of science and education. Its fair to assume there were a lot of excited children spreading the word about magnetic materials to their friends and family on the way home that night.

Riding on the on the momentum of the first visit to the school, in the subsequent weeks the children started to develop their own short animation film using skills taught to them by local animation company Winding Snake. The final animations will be used by the MAGMA research group to increase awareness amongst other research groups, industry partners and the general public of the importance of magnetic materials and the ground-breaking research being undertaken at Cardiff University. It is hoped the cartoon style delivery will make the subject more accessible and inspire interest in this increasingly important subject area.

Keep an eye on this blog to see how the Magnations project develops.

This project was funded through the Cardiff University Higher Education Funding Council for Wales (HEFCW) Research Wales Innovation Fund (RWIF).

If you are interested in finding out more about our work with local school children or the research we are undertaking at MAGMA in the processing, characterisation, manufacturing and recycling of specialist soft magnetic materials, contact us on magma-project@cardiff.ac.uk