At the end of last semester, we were assigned to research a material which is safe enough to store in the material library in QMES. After our discussion, we decided to seek for an unusual metal which comply with all the safety regulations.

During the research state, we first considered several metals including iridium, germanium, bismuth, tellurium and indium. For each candidate, we searched for the SDS sheet and only bismuth and indium passed through the screening. Finally, because bismuth was brittle and easy to break into pieces, indium became the final choice. In view of the epidemic situation in China, many companies had shut down including the logistic companies and were difficult to contact with emails, we had to consider shops close to either of us. After several negotiations, we received a piece of 10g indium with a reasonable price.

When working on the poster, we divided the work and set the deadlines wisely utilizing Project Management Form. We discussed every detail to make the poster more perfect. After the tutorial class, we had a long discussion about how to separate the sections and how to arrange the pictures to be eye-catching. We deleted the ‘industrial chain’ section, broke the ‘literature review’ section into ‘History’, ‘Structure & Property’ and ‘Manufacture’, and combine the application and market together into one section. The entire design was reserved and refined according to the feedback. It was delightful that our poster won 34 votes and our material, indium, went into the next round, website.

However, we had made a mistake in the recruitment part. We should advertise our group in advance, but due to various reasons, we failed to did that. The recruitment process was not fluent for our group. Fortunately, we had successfully invited six capable persons to join our group.

The material library project provided a chance for us to have a deeper understanding of many kinds of materials. During this project, we were able to apply the knowledge learned in previous courses to practice. We can now summarize the information efficiently, manage our time reasonably, communicate with partners fluently. However, due to distance-learning, we did not have enough time to evaluate and reflect the work. The communication became a serious problem for group work. It is a challenge for us to adjust the time of every group member. To save time, some group meetings were not held on time. Reflect the whole project, the largest problems were all caused by communication. Therefore, holding group meetings to report the progress of completion and remind of unfinished tasks is what we need to stick to in the future.