When Peter Williams ['22] was taking 2.002 (Mechanics and Materials II) [in the Fall 2022] semester, he won a trophy whose height is approximately equal to the width of three human hairs. Rather than feeling short-changed over his minuscule prize, the senior in mechanical engineering considered it a fitting award for a contest in which he and his classmates were asked to design a nanoscale material able to withstand compression.

The design challenge represents an innovative new part of the undergraduate class on the mechanical properties of materials[...]

Their mission was straightforward: to design the most compression-resistant microscopic cube possible with a material that would touch each side of the cube but fill only 20 percent of the total volume. The materials were fabricated using a 3D printer that shines a laser on resin to create precise, high-resolution structures[...]

For his winning entry, Williams relied on a design principle he had learned before taking 2.002. Calling it a “clear way to win,” he arranged his nanomaterial in a two-dimensional profile that looks like vertical walls.

“If you have some kind of truss structure, it’s not going to be as good as if the material is directly supported by the material under it. You can’t put the same material diagonally and expect it to be as strong,” Williams says. “I’m very good at CAD, and this is a very simple design. The more complicated ones didn’t work.”

"Class opens the door to a new world of mechanical engineering" by Michaela Jarvis, Department of Mechanical Engineering, MIT News, 18 December 2022