Events

After a successful session about the Physics of Afternoon Tea (the 9th October), where our reserachears Keith Bromley and Marion Roullet introduced enthusiastic audience members to the physics behind dairy products, scones, jams and tea, we'll be back at the Cafe at Pentland Plants Garden Centre the 16th, showing how microscopic structures of chocolate affect its taste and look. We'll end our contributions to the fantastic Midlothian Science Festival by an activity for children, "Soft Matter Kingdom", in IKEA (Straiton) the 18th from 3 to 5pm.

ECFP present an event to bring together industrial and academic researchers to celebrate and share the results of our EPSRC funded Programme Grant on 'Design Principles for New Soft Materials'. This has included adventurous research on the behaviour of microorganisms in complex fluids and on harvesting functional ingredients from biological materials.  We look forward to sharing ideas and development opportunities with scientists from academic and industrial backgrounds.

ECFP was delighted to co-host a hackathon with the energy company Engie and Launch.ed during the University's Festival of Creative Learning week.  The day brought together 18 students with experienced scientists across the College of Science and Engineering and trainers in entrepreneurship.  In the morning the group split into teams and brainstormed, then converged on ideas and developed a pitch presentation.

The SOFI CDT are holding their third Industry Day. Designed to link togther industry with the centre's academic expertise the meeting will include presentations and to opportunity for one to one meetings between industrialists and academics. For more information and to register see the event website.

On April 27th, Edinburgh Complex Fluids Partnership, together with Interface, jointly hosted a workshop on the flow and stability of complex formulations. This second workshop of the Scottish Formulation Network brough together academic and industry participants to discuss how structure and interactions in multicomponent mixtures control stability and flow properties.

On Sunday 8th of March researchers from ECFP ran an interactive workshop at the Dunbar SciFest. Around 400 people visited the Soft Matter in Action stand and played with demonstrations highlighting the research from the group, including our ever popular vat of cornstarch in water as a model non-Newtonian fluid. Visitors also made edible gel capsules, investigated viscous coiling, and met our collection of fluffy microbes.

Pretend that you are a consultant working with companies to help them solve challenges with product manufacture and innovation. Dr Job Thijssen, Prof. Alex Lips and Dr. Tiffany Wood of the Edinburgh Complex Fluids Partnership will provide insight into what it is like to work with companies through quasi-'real-life' case studies. Find out more from the ILW brochure.

Researchers introduced over 300 people to the delights of soft matter as part of Doors Open Day on Saturday 27th September 2014. This city wide event allows members of the public to see behind the scenes of building across Edinburgh. At the JCMB, visitors were able to see the rheo-imaging set up in action, visit the food science preparation laboratory, and see examples of active soft matter in the form of bacteria and Janus particles.