On 29.01.2025, two school visits took place at the TU Darmstadt, during which we also had the pleasure of welcoming several groups of curious pupils to our institute. During their visit, they were given exciting insights into our glass, statics and paper working groups and were able to get active and creative themselves.

In the glass group, the students learned about different types of glass. The practical tests were particularly impressive.

They were able to destroy both toughened safety glass and thermally tempered glass in a controlled manner and thus experience the differences in breakage behavior. The students also learned how glass is cut manually with a glass cutter and mechanically with a glass cutting table. The students put their skills to the test, especially when cutting circles.

In the structural analysis group, things got creative and technical at the same time.

The students built a tensegrity model from building blocks and were then able to gain a small insight into the associated numerical simulation. Tensegrity models are self-supporting and self-loading spatial lattice structures that consist of discrete compression and continuous tension elements and thus form fascinating structures. This provided a first vivid insight into the world of structural mechanics and engineering.

The paper group challenged the students' love of experimentation. The task was to build a swing from various paper materials and then test it. This showed how different paper materials can be in terms of their stability and load-bearing capacity. Various small material samples were also used to show where paper is already used in construction.

The visit was an enriching experience for everyone involved – full of new findings, practical experiments and exciting insights into our research work. We are already looking forward to the next school visit!