Crystal-A-Con
Crystal-A-Con was a 2 day pop-up science festival hosted as part of the International Union of Crystallography 2023 conference in Melbourne, Australia. Our free, interactive festival attracted over 400 school students and families, with plenty to see and do for all science lovers.
7 Awesome Activities
Did you know there are seven types of building blocks for all crystals? We’re using those as our inspiration for our activities.
Cubic
Help build our giant diamond crystal structure
Hexagonal
Make your own crystal model to take home (or to eat!)
Trigonal
Patterns from around the world
Tetragonal
Light and Colour with ANSTO
(our nuclear science agency)
Orthorhombic
Play a crystal detective with our friends from the Cambridge Crystallographic Data Centre
Monoclinic
Build your own biomolecule - origami and more with our friends at the Protein Data Bank
Triclinic
Meet real life crystallographer scientists.
Ask them your anything or find out what their favourite crystals are and why.
Lots of Exciting Exhibitions
As well as our interactive exhibits, there was lots else to explore – including:
Pattern Competition Winners
STEM and Needles with Irene Suarez-Martinez
Giant Crystal Structures
Public Lecture
Saturday 26 August 2pm – 3pm
Professor Jennifer Martin AC FAA is recognised internationally for her pioneering research in protein crystallography, a science that seeks to understand how biological machines operate.
Professor Jennifer Martin presented to us “How I fell in love with crystallography, and why you should too”.
This public lecture took a ramble through the history, philosophy and practice of crystallography across the past century, highlighting examples of the discipline’s enormous impact on biology, chemistry, and physics.
Bio
Professor Jennifer Martin AC FAA is recognised internationally for her pioneering research in protein crystallography, a science that seeks to understand how biological machines operate.
Professor Martin was the University of Wollongong Deputy Vice Chancellor (Research & Innovation) from 2019 to 2022. Prior to that, she enjoyed a 25-year research career at the University of Queensland and at Griffith University as Director of the Griffith Institute for Drug Discovery. Professor Martin has held four nationally competitive research fellowships including an inaugural ARC Laureate Fellowship. In 2018, Professor Martin was awarded the highest civilian honour in Australia, Companion (AC) in the General Division of the Order of Australia, “for eminent service to science, and to scientific research, particularly in the field of biochemistry and protein crystallography applied to drug-resistant bacteria, as a role model, and as an advocate for gender equality in science”. Professor Martin was President of the Asian Crystallographic Association from 2016 to 2019. She is currently a member of the Executive Committee for the International Union of Crystallography (IUCr), chairs the IUCr Gender Equity and Diversity Committee, and chairs the Advisory Committee to the Worldwide Protein Data Bank. Jenny was elected Fellow of the Australian Academy of Science in 2017 and was a member of the Science in Australia Gender Equity (SAGE) Steering Committee, which established the Athena SWAN pilot to address gender equity in science, technology, engineering, maths and medicine across Australia.
Abstract
How I fell in love with crystallography, and why you should too
What’s not to love? In my sub-field of protein crystallography I can be a:
creative artist - generating beautiful crystals, and designing proteins that glow green;
explorer - discovering for the first time the inner workings of biology;
physicist – recording data at synchrotrons and nuclear reactors around the globe;
chemist - supporting the discovery of new drugs for devastating diseases;
influencer - enabling highly accurate AI-generated protein structures;
and baker - #CrystalCakes.
FAQ's
Crystallography is a way of working out the shape of things that are too small to be seen, such as atoms. Atoms are the smallest building blocks of everything. Crystallography can tell us how atoms line up and how they make all the materials around the world that surround us every day.
Crystallography is like taking a normal x-ray photo except you don’t see the bones inside a person, you see the tiny little atoms and molecules inside a crystal.
Watch how these crystallographers explain what crystallography is and what they do:
It can be hard to wrap your head around the definition of what Crystallography is to some, but it’s a really important science and one with lots of connections to Australia. Some of us adults don’t really get it either so imagine explaining this to your students.
This is what Crystal–A-Con was for.
See more of our video resources here.
Bragg Your Pattern is an outreach initiative by a small group of Australian scientists responsible for organising the 26th Congress and General Assembly of the International Union of Crystallography (IUCr 2023).
The purpose is to inspire and provide educational resources and experiences to students and teachers as our way of celebrating and giving back to the community as a lasting legacy of the International Congress.