Australia High Commission | La Trobe Nanotech Study Tour

It was an early start to the day today as we left NUS (National University of Singapore) at 8am to head to the Australian High Commission. It was just a few stops on the train from Kent Ridge to Holland Village where we quickly got some breakfast at Brunetti which had amazing croissants and milkshakes (the milkshakes had choc chips in them….. YUM!!). We then made our way to the Australian High Commission and once we had gone through security we were greeted by Jennifer Burdick, the third secretary, and Tracy Harris who works for Austrade. They held a highly informative seminar in which we learns all about Singapore’s political system and history, Singapore’s relationship with Australia, and the educational relationship with Australia.

In the afternoon we visited IMRE (Institute of Molecular Research and Engineering) where Dr Sean O’Shea who then gave us an introduction, followed by Dr Evan Williams. We were then shown around the building to several labs, the first being an optics lab which had several machines that measures the light emitted from a single molecule. After this we went to the nano-composites lab which was my personal favourite as it is something I have a large interest in, and is something I am considering as a potential future job opportunity. In this lab they have been working a lot with carbon fibre to make new bicycle frames that are extremely strong and light. They have previously made aeroplane turbine propellers out of carbon fibre, but wanted to try and make them withstand the extremely high temperatures from the engine, and also be able to withstand a lightning strike. Unfortunately they were unsuccessful in doing so, they were able to make it withstand 10^16 times more electricity than previously and could withstand an indirect lightning strike, however a direct hit would still break it. The third lab we attended was the characterisation lab which used had SEM’s (Scanning Electron Microscope) and other scanning machines alike.