A student is doing an interesting project, which she thought of when making dinner one evening. When getting an onion ready for chopping, the thin layers of skin of the onion gained her attention, and project ideas began to be born.
Consider stretching out a layer of onion skin over the opening of a tube and securing the skin so it is a membrane covering the tube. One could then begin to place small, uniform weights on the surface as a measure of strength, before any tears form in the skin layer. One could also try to stretch the skin by pulling on it, perhaps with thread hanging over a small pulley where weights could hang.
With these types of experimental techniques, one could then start using multiple layers of skins and see how those compare to single layers. One could try skins from different types of onions, or from other types of plants. If one found differences between different types of skins, checking out the structures under a microscope could reveal engineering ideas for human-made materials. Biomimetics is a huge area of research, looking for natural materials and patterns that can be translated into practical devices for people, and this type of experiment could be used in that capacity.
Think about other plants and natural objects or structures you could test and explore, and see if there is some information we could gain that could help society.
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