Translator: Amanda Chu Reviewer: Peter van de Ven
What if some of the world's biggest problems and issues
could be solved by some of the world's smallest science?
What if some of the science fiction that you see in superhero movies
is actually science fact?
What if we change the language that we use around our little girls,
and instead of telling them that they're pretty,
we tell them that they're smart?
My name is Michelle.
I'm a nanotechnologist.
I'm an engineer.
And I'm here today to share my life story and some engineering principles
to explain how you can build a superhero in just five easy steps.
Step one:
Believe in your dreams;
better than that,
surround yourself by people who believe in them too.
So, every story has a beginning, and mine starts when I was a little girl.
People would ask me what I wanted to be when I grew up.
And I said, "I want to be a superhero."
And they would smile and say, "Uh-huh, you'll grow out of that."
They were like, "Who would you like to be like? Wonder Woman?"
And I'm like, "No, I want to be like Batman
because Batman builds his own gadgets and he's just a regular guy.
I want to grow up to be a superhero, just like Batman."
Again, people looked funny at me.
And do you know what they did?
They told me, "That's okay. You're pretty. You have beautiful eyes."
What I wanted them to say
was, "Wow, look at the intricate design on that super galactic spaceship
that you just built out of toothpicks and straws and sticky tape."
So my dad sat me down,
and he said, "Michelle, tell me why you want to be a superhero."
And I said, "Dad, I really want to change the world,
I want to help people,
and I really, really, really want to build a machine that flies."
And so he did what every great parent does:
He believed in me.
He took my hand, and he said, "Okay, take this,"
and he handed me a soldering iron,
and he said, "If you're going to build a flying machine,
I'm going to have to teach you how to rewire circuits."
Step one -
have a dream
and surround yourself
by people who are going to give you the skills to make that next step.
Step two:
If you believe in something, stick with it,
because life is hard
and there are going to be times when you want to quit
because you can't see how you will make it through,
but stick with it.
Superman was Superman.
Spiderman was good at sticking to things.
Spiderman can use his hands and his web powers to climb up walls.
Well, I'm going to take inspiration from a different type of stickiness:
the Gecko.
The Gecko is an incredible creature,
and it can stick to pretty much any surface.
A gecko can balance its whole weight on just one toe,
and if it puts all four feet on the ceiling,
it has enough stickiness to support itself and you as well.
Really.
So, geckos are incredible,
and lots of scientists are trying to understand how a gecko does this.
One company called Geckskin are actually creating a material
that combines both soft and very stiff fabrics
to act like the bone, the tendon, and the skin interaction in the gecko;
however, I decided to take a different tack.
So, if you look at the toes of a gecko,
gecko toes are covered in millions and millions of little hairs,
and we know that these little hairs can also help with the stickiness.
It's not a wet stickiness,
it's what we call dry adhesion
so you can stick it to something and you can pull it off.
Now, with the help of Emilio Callias from the Callahan Innovation Center
and Tim Miller from Victoria University of Wellington,
we're using a high-resolution 3D printer
to create artificial gecko hairs,
and they look like this.
And they're tiny, and they're amazing.
And we're playing with things like the aspect ratio in the materials.
These are made out of polymers to create sticky surfaces.
And hopefully, very soon, you'll be able to go out and buy them
so that you, too, can get some tape that you can stick hard to your goals too.
Step 3:
Protect yourself from danger,
but don't forget you've got to go out and take some risks.
Some of my biggest successes in life
have been from some of my biggest risk-taking.
I don't blindly jump off a cliff.
If I'm going to take a big risk,
I'm going to make sure that I'm protected along the way.
Captain America has the right idea.
Captain America has an amazing shield.
It's made out of a fictional metal called "vibranium."
Vibranium, according to comic books, actually absorbs energy on impact,
and that's how it's almost indestructible.
So obviously, I needed to go build myself a shield.
So, in conjunction with Tom Allen and Dr. Mark Battley
at the Center for Advanced Composite Materials, Auckland University,
I went, and I built a shield.
So, I didn't want a shield made out of metal,
because it's too heavy.
I actually designed it out of advanced composites.
And so what you see here
is a mixture of carbon fiber, advanced technical foam,
and a whole bunch of fun in the lab.
What I was able to do is measure how tough it was
because how much energy a material absorbs
is its toughness,
and there's only one way to test toughness -
and this is my favorite part of being an engineer -
and that's to break it.
So first of all, you have to pick your materials,
and there are some materials that are better than others.
If a material shatters into pieces, breaks very easily, or delaminates,
that is not what you want to build your shield.
But it's good just to do it to have a little fun and test it.
However,
if your material can take a huge amount of impact force
and while it's actually happening,
it actually doesn't shatter;
instead, it just deforms and it buckles.
That way,
instead of having something shatter in your face,
your shield will just dent and buckle, and still protect you.
This is what I was going to build my shield out of.
Oh, and here it is.
So, what you can see is I now have my own shield.
This is actually created from carbon fiber on the top.
There's an advanced technical core in the middle
and carbon fiber on the bottom.
What I love about my shield,
and the reason why I think it's better than Captain America's
is because this shield only weighs 600 grams.
That's 21 ounces.
If I made this same shape and size of shield out of metals,
such as mild steel,
it would weigh 16 kilograms.
That's 35 pounds.
That is not something I want to carry around.
600 grams I can hook onto my handbag and take with me anywhere.
(Laughter)
So this is my protection
because if I'm going to take some big risks,
I'm going to protect myself.
What I've thought about, though, is actually calling up Tony Stark
and helping him generate the new Iron Man.
And what I want to tell him
is, actually, you want to remove some of that iron out of Iron Man
because if you want something lighter and tougher and faster,
you should probably make carbon fiber man.
Actually, being invisible can allow you to create a space to think and reflect.
And that's really important
because we live in this world of craziness.
I don't know about you,
but I have emails and texts and phone calls
and a to-do list that is longer than I can see the end of.
And what I found about myself is that I'm naturally an introvert,
and what that means
is I work best when I can sit in silence for periods of time
and just think.
And there are lots of times when my day is so busy
that I just wish I had an invisibility shield
that I could surround myself in and just sit in it,
just for a little bit,
and then when I'm ready,
I'll come out, and I'll come talk to you,
but I just need a little bit of space.
Being a nanotechnologist
means that I can move atoms into places that they don't want to go.
And so we have this new type of material called metamaterials.
And metamaterials
are actually materials that would never happen naturally in real life,
and the materials that we've taken the atoms off
and we forced them into places that they don't want to be.
Metamaterials react very differently with light than natural materials.
I can see you and you can see me because light is bouncing off me.
Light is either being reflected,
some of it's being absorbed, some of it's being scattered
by all my wrinkles and my dimples and the things that make me me.
You know my shape, you know my size,
you know my color
because of how light interacts with my surface.
Light travels as a wave,
and the speed that it travels is different from air through to water.
You can do this simple experiment:
You can put a pen into a glass of water, and it will look like it's bent.
You can put a spoon in,
and as you look,
it looks like it actually is bigger than it really is.
You can all do this at home.
What's happening is the light is traveling at different speeds.
It does that because air and water have a very different refractive index,
and so they travel at different speeds through different medium.
What we can do with metamaterials
is we can match the refractive index to make something appear invisible.
Inside this bowl is some water
and also a whole bunch of solid balls,
which you probably can't see,
because the refractive index of them is matched to that of the water -
meaning in air, you can see them
because the light bounces off them differently
than it does when it's matched with the same refractive index of water.
And so invisibility is just how you play with light.
And metamaterials actually are just about creating material
that can either have a near zero or almost a negative refractive index
so you can control what you think light is going to do what it actually does
with the material.
And that is the power in visibility.
Right now, with metamaterials,
we can only do this at a very small scale,
but hopefully, very soon,
we're going to be able to make this big enough
that I can sit inside and just have some me time.
(Laughter)
Step five:
Superheroes have weapons.
Thor has his incredible hammer.
The Green Lantern has his ring.
The Silver Surfer has a surfboard.
I think the most powerful weapon that any of us can have is knowledge.
One of the biggest problems we have
is that when anybody mentions education, we think of children,
we think of institutions like schools and universities.
Education is for life.
Knowledge is something that we should be gaining
every single day.
I would never have got to this point where I am
if I wasn't always asking questions.
Why does a gecko stick?
How does light react with materials?
Can I really build a shield today?
Without asking those questions every day,
I'm never going to further my knowledge,
and I'll never be able to develop the science that I can.
So, my opinion is, actually,
everybody needs to be asking questions all the time,
and we all need to be moving forward, to increase our knowledge
about how the world works and why the world works,
and making sure that we're making informed decisions.
So for me, the most important power that all of us can have,
and the power that's going to change the world
is actually knowledge.
And so, hopefully, you'll be able to see that.
This is five easy steps to build a superhero.
Batman once said,
"It is not what's underneath, it is what you do that defines you."
So go do something super
because the hero is just a person who takes on an obstacle
with their inner strength, their personal shield,
and a drive to move forward by gaining knowledge.
I'm actually here to teach you
about how each one of you can create your own superhero
in five easy steps.
Thank you.
(Applause)