Smart Material Museum Exhibit

Our team was tasked with designing, building, and testing a museum exhibit which utilizes smart materials for the Challenger Learning Center in Tallahassee, FL. A smart material is simply a material with a property that can be controlled by an outside source such as stress, temperature, or electric and magnetic charge. The smart material selected for this project was the piezoelectric type. Piezoelectric materials produce a voltage if stress is applied to the material, or conversely, will bend or produce a mechanical stress when a voltage is applied to it. Energy can be transferred from mechanical to electrical or vice versa, from electrical to mechanical.