Step 1 - Investigation into materials

What materials are your product, and your packaging made from?  Why? AS A GROUP you have been asked to investigate your chosen product, but before you do, you need to understand some key material properties. 

Physical properties:

• absorbency - the ability to soak up moisture, light or heat, eg natural materials (such as cotton or paper) tend to be more absorbent than man-made materials (such as acrylic or polystyrene)

• density - how solid a material is. This is measured by dividing the mass (grams) by volume (cm3), eg lead is a dense material

• fusibility - the ability of a material to be heated and joined to another material when cooled, eg webbing is fusible and can be ironed onto fabrics

• electrical conductivity - the ability to conduct electricity, eg copper is a good conductor of electricity

• thermal conductivity - the ability to conduct heat, eg steel is a good heat conductor, whereas pine is not.

Working properties:

• strength - the ability of a material to withstand compression, tension and shear, eg in woven fabrics cotton isn’t as strong as wool when pulled

• hardness - the ability to withstand impact without damage, eg pine is easier to dent with an impact than oak; therefore, oak is harder

• toughness - materials that are hard to break or snap are tough and can absorb shock, eg Kevlar in bulletproof vests is a very tough material

• malleability - being able to bend or shape easily would make material easily malleable, eg sheet metal such as steel or silver is malleable and can be hammered into shape

• ductility - materials that can be stretched are ductile, eg pulling copper into wire shows it is ductile

• elasticity - the ability to be stretched and then return to its original shape, eg elastane in swimming costumes is a highly elastic material.

As a group, prepare a presentation on the above with respect to:

• Papers and Boards

• Natural and manufactured timbers

• Metals and alloys

• Polymers/Plastics

You can use whatever resources you find, and perhaps AI such as Copilot to help you.  As a group, you need to provide a bibliography. No one is going to shout at you for using AI, but you must state that you have used it, including the prompt you used to get the answer.  

It is okay if you don't know the answer to some questions,  you won't know the answer to everything, if you don't know, just say so - don't ignore it.

Resources

https://www.bbc.co.uk/bitesize/guides/zjgyb82/revision/1

https://penyrheol-comp.net/technology/gcse-resistant-materials/

https://www.dt-house.org/paper-2-revision-notes

Try searching for resistant materials revision and see what you get.

Step 2 - How do you prepare these materials? 

FOR YOUR CHOSEN MATERIAL, (remember everyone will have a different job) can you add to the presentation how you would prepare these materials? The preparation for the card is going to be very different from that of sheet metal.