Materials

• Wood: Natural Material made from the trunks and branches of trees.
• Plastic: Synthetic Materials made from chemicals extracted from oil, coal and gas
• Metal: natural hard shiny materials often extracted from rocks by smelting (melting metal)
• Fabric: soft materials made by weaving thin fibres togeather. Fibres can be natural (eg cotton,wool) or synthetic (eg nylon,polyester).
• Ceramics: Materials made from clay and heated by sun or an oven until they are hard.
• composites: materials that consist of one or more materials layered or bonded together. NOT the same as an alloy.
• smart: materials whoes properties change in reeponce to the environment.
• Alloy: A metal formed by mixing two or more metals togeather. this results in a new metal that is usually stronger and more useful than the metals that it was made from.