Soft materials, such as polymers, gels and foams, are materials that we encounter daily. This course is designed to introduce students to the state-of-the-art in soft material engineering. Specifically, the course will first introduce the fundamental of different classes of soft materials, followed by providing concepts on the advanced engineering and bioinspired designs for transforming soft materials with extreme properties for useful applications. Challenges on soft material processing, characterization techniques and practical applications of these engineered soft systems will be discussed. Students will have an opportunity to engage in interactive demonstration and classroom experiments for improving student learning.

CILO-1: Explain the fundamentals of polymeric and soft materials. CILO-2: Identify emerging challenges in soft material processing. CILO-3: Apply engineering and bioinspired approaches to design and develop soft material systems with extreme properties.