You can’t teach sports unless you have a gym. And it’s the same idea for the 21st-century skills we want to teach kids: innovation, creativity, critical thinking, deep understanding of science and technology. If you don’t have a place to teach these skills, you can’t really do a good job.
You can’t teach those skills in a classroom with 40 chairs and a blackboard. That’s just not how scientists work; that’s not how technologists work. It’s not a good way to teach those skills.
In the same way that we can’t assess these skills with a traditional paper and pencil test, you can’t test if someone can swim well by giving them a multiple choice test.
Paved roads are nice to look at, but they’re easily damaged and costly to repair. UV rays, weather, oxidation and constant traffic wear down paved surfaces, loosening rocks and creating dangerous potholes.
But are there better alternatives for paving roads than traditional asphalt? At TEDxDelft, civil engineer Erik Schlangen says yes. Here he demonstrates a new type of porous asphalt with an astonishing feature: When cracked, it can be “healed” by induction heating.
This “self-healing” asphalt is infused with tiny strands of steel wool (yes, that steel wool — the same used to scrub dishes), which clings to the binding of the asphalt, called bitumen. When Schlangen’s asphalt develops a crack, caretakers can use heat to melt the steel mixed in the bitumen, which then liquifies and flows into the road’s cracks, “healing” itself.
Onstage, Erik demonstrates this process by dropping a piece of his asphalt into liquid nitrogen, breaking it, and then heating it in a microwave to “heal it,” a process from which the asphalt reemerges fully formed. Out on the roadways, he and his team from the Delft University of Technology are working on a real piece of highway donated by the Dutch government, 400 meters of the A58, where they’ve discovered that this process really works, as Erik says in his talk:
“If we go on the road every four years with our healing machine — this is the big version we have made to go on the real road — if we go on the road every four years, we can double the surface life of this road, which of course saves a lot of money.”
Erik is also working with microbiologist Henk Jonkers to create a “self-healing” building concrete (pictured above, on bottom), which is infused with bacterial spores and a compound that feeds these spores — calcium lactate. “When the biomaterial is exposed to water (one of the many things known to contribute to the degradation of concrete),” says io9, “the bacteria set to work converting calcium lactate into calcite, which fills in surrounding cracks.”
We can’t wait to see what comes of these exciting new building materials, and until then, we’re crossing our fingers for self-healing smartphone screens.
(Bio-concrete photo via io9)
Spotlight on the Netherlands: 5 engineering talks from the Low Country
Home to a thriving tech and science community, The Netherlands has a lot to offer when it comes to groundbreaking TEDx Talks. But today, we offer just a small tasting — 5 uber-brainy TEDx Talks highlighting some of the exciting new projects underway in the land of tulips.
A robotic revolution for eye surgery: Maarten Beelen at TEDxBinnenhof
The eye is one of the most delicate structures in the body, and eye surgery can prove very risky for all but the steadiest of hands. Maarten Beelen introduces a new breed of robotic technology that may one day make surgical procedures on the eye easier and safer.
Portable water drilling for the remotest areas: Floris de Vos at TEDxBinnenhof
One day, Floris de Vos, a former drill rig operator, had an epiphany that has the potential to bring fresh water to people living in the most remote areas in the world. Using his human-powered water pump, nicknamed the “Flo-flo”, a well can be drilled almost anywhere, even in the rockiest of soil.
Finally, kites have grown up: Roland Schmehl at TEDxDelft
Wind power is a fast-growing alternative energy source, but traditional wind turbines are noisy, cumbersome, and pose a danger to wildlife. In this talk, Roland Schmel proposes a surprising solution: turning the simple kite into a power generator.
Indoor farming: A plant paradise: Gertjan Meeuws at TEDxBrainport
For centuries, prevailing wisdom has held that plants are happiest when they grow naturally. That’s not true, says Gertjan Meeuws. Using specially-designed indoor greenhouses, scientists can help plants grow much more efficiently. As an added bonus, land, pesticide and water usage are greatly reduced and crops reach consumers fresher and faster.
Mobile power for mobile devices: Marijn Berk at TEDxRotterdam
While the devices that we use for communication and entertainment are now mobile, the power sources that they use are not. Marijn Berk proposes using new materials that generate power from sunlight to keep mobile devices moving.
