BS Materials Engineering

MatE 197 PhilConstruct Reaction Paper

Last Saturday, November 8, 2014, I went to the PhilConstruct 2014 event held at the
Mall of Asia SMX Convention center. Along the way, I was able to pass by the World Trade
Center where the event was simultaneously being held. I was able to get a glimpse of some of
the heavy equipment used in construction. I was terribly excited because I was finally going to
see some of the possible applications of my course, which is Materials Engineering.
I got to the venue at around 4:30 pm and it was probably the busiest state of the whole
event. There were a lot of people running around carrying brochures and gift bags from different
companies and there were more people scrambling to get in, including me and my group mates.
At the registration booth, we found out that the exhibit closes at 5:30 pm! Having less than an
hour to explore and observe, we rushed in and started looking for companies that could
potentially supply the materials we need for the hypothetical reconstruction of the Tacloban
Airport. Once we were inside the exhibit, I had to stop and look, in awe, at the numerous booths
of different construction companies all packed in one space. I thought to myself, how was I
going to find anything on engineered bamboo here? It was like I entered a beehive, without a
queen bee to organize the worker bees. It was almost chaotic (in a good way) in the sense that
each booth had its own little mob of curious onlookers, anxious to know a little more about the
products laid down before them. We started at the second floor where most of the most of the
materials for interior structures/design were located. After a few minutes of wandering through
the aisles between the booths, I was able to find a company that makes bamboo parquet
blocks. The Company was called the Heritage Multi-Office Prod. Inc. Most of the samples were
non-load bearing, but there was one sample that was load bearing. It had grooves on the front
and back for effective water draining. I found a number of other companies that manufactured
bamboo products but most of them are non-load bearing mainly because bamboo as a
construction material is still not widely known. Most of the companies that had engineered
bamboo products only made bamboo floorings. There was one in particular, Kent Floors, which
made Strand Woven Carbonized Bamboo floorings. We also found a reflective paint made by
Nippon Paint. From what I remember, the paint reportedly had glass beads that enhanced their
reflective property. We also found a number of solar panels too.
Aside from the materials related to our project we also saw innovative materials/
machines that were pretty remarkable. We came across a product called Nano-coat anti-heat

solution. It is sprayed onto glass windows or doors and it effectively reduces the penetration of
heat without sacrificing the amount of light that passes through. There was a sample shown to
us and the glass without the nano-coat and the glass with the nano-coat looked exactly the
same but the one with the nano-coat really did reduce the heat that was supposed to pass
through! We also saw a 3D printing machines made by Kingssel that uses Polylactic Acid (PLA)
as raw material to print figurines, logos, and also toys that had joints.
All in all the experience was really enjoyable and educational, especially when I get to
ask questions from actual engineers that are already applying what Im still studying. I wish we
had more time to look around, because really an hour was not enough to appreciate and go
through all the booths. We were running through the exhibit to make most of the hour that we
had. Maybe Ill have better luck next year.