Students from the Department of Materials at Loughborough University recently attended the Graphene Hackathon. The annual event, held in Manchester, challenges participants to reimagine traditional product development using graphene, a Nobel Prize-winning two-dimensional material that offers a sustainable future with it being 200 times stronger by weight than steel and superior to electrical and thermal conductivity than copper.

In the competition, students were given access to essential tools such as 3D printers, PCs and Arduinos and were tasked with designing and prototyping products that control graphene to improve their uses, whether by enhancing existing products or innovating something entirely new.

Ben, a part A Materials Science and Engineering student, along with his teammates of other Loughborough University students successfully prototyped a graphene-enhanced mobile collision sensor featuring Bluetooth activity.

The purpose of the device was to provide farmers with advanced information on the positions of locust swarms as they traverse a region. By pinpointing swarm locations and visualising the data on an app, farmers could strategically place pesticides which will reduce nitrous oxide emissions – a significant contributor to climate change.

Ben comments:

The experience was both enriching and immersive, offering us a glimpse into the dynamics of startup life. Working as a team, we navigated through new ideas and worked under pressure to create something extraordinary using our creativity. It is experiences like these that reinforce my commitment to becoming an engineer—knowing that we have the capacity to truly change the world.

Throughout the weekend, there were also sessions from IP lawyers and experts from the GEIC (Graphene Engineering Innovation Centre)  and Henry Royce Institute on what it takes to transition a product from the lab to the market.