Hi friends,
"Being a PhD student is a process of resilience", at least professors Luis Loria and Jose Pablo Aguiar (from Costa Rica) say that. After a year and 5 months in this journey I can also support that phrase. So, since I have come all this way, Why not to try to have the whole experience of being a PhD?
Then, this time, I want to tell you about my experience in the 3 minute thesis competition at the University of Granada level. All the past month and a half, PhD students from UGR whose wanted to participate in this event had the opportunity to attend to a communication course with the journalists: Carlos Centeno and Susana Escudero.
The course was related with topics such as scientific dissemination strategies, how to transform your research in a monologue, a brief introduction of the context of the 3 minute thesis competition, production of our own monologues, non-verbal language, stage presence in the scenario, the keyword value in speeches, intonation, experiences of previous 3 minute thesis winners at UGR leve, among others.
This 2018-19 edition counted with the participation of 19 PhD students from different knowledge areas. We had to present two times our speeches, the first one the past 20th of February, where I got the opportunity to pass to the final the last 14th of March.
Here I show you my speech (I am sorry, the video has not the first phrase complete):
Here is the slide from the background:
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Just in case you want to read the whole message, here is the text:
Do you know who is Magneto from
the X-men comic? This character who is a powerful mutant human with abilities
to feel and control the magnetic field of the Earth and the bioelectric energy
of living beings?
I am sure that by now you are all
thinking this is just science fiction, but letting that aside and recognising
that the writers of this genre actually put some scientific facts in their
work, I want to tell you a little bit about a piece of technology I am
developing for roads: mechanomutable roads.
When I call the roads
mechanomutable, I am referring to the possibility of modifying the mechanical
properties and functioning of the surface layer of the roads. I can do that by
adding metallic materials to this layer and using magnetic fields to manipulate
them. This is now starting to sound similar to the comic, isn't it? But here we
are mutating the roads instead of humans and using technology instead of
fictitious superpowers.
Why do we need this technology?
Let me tell you about potential applications: imagen that you are in a city
from future where the roads seem to be kind of alive and can send messages to
your vehicle and you don’t need to drive it. Or that those roads can
communicate with blind and deaf people and can integrate them more in the
transportation system. Or maybe that those roads can feel the snow in their
surface and they start to deice it. Or that they can know when a heavy truck is
passing over them and they become stronger. Or even that they are smart enough
to self-heal their own cracks or to recover the permanent deformations they
have.
So, we are having smarter, safer
and more efficient roads. Roads that are an multifunctional system of
communication. Roads with an extra value for the investment we do to build them
and the space they are using.
For these reasons, I am studying
this technology’s performance by making specimens with different geometries and
metallic material content and testing them under different magnetic fields, temperatures
and loads. This will then enable me to come up with the best way to design and
build a test track to validate the use of mechanomutable roads.
If we can use such advanced
technology, who needs superpowers?
Finally, I should say that I felt really lucky, because professors Mayca Rubio and Fernando Moreno where supporting me and Raúl (other PhD student at LabIC.UGR, who also participated at the event) there. Also, professor Guillermo Iglesias (my professor from de Department of Physics) was there. It is really motivating when your professors take a little time of their busy agendas to support you in this kind of events.
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| From left to right: Mayca Rubio, Guillermo Iglesias, Raúl Tauste, Paulina Leiva and Fernando Moreno |
Keep in touch,
ESR 14-PLP.
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