About a year ago, my department at South China University of Science and Technology in Guangzhou invited me to submit a 5-minute video clip about my lab to be shown at a secondary school summer camp. After five years as a Principal Investigator, she had a lot of outreach experience, so she was pretty confident that she would pull this off.

Three seconds after I snapped a picture of myself with my phone in the office, I realized I was being too optimistic. I couldn’t help but look around the room and had to press “pause”. And while watching myself on camera, I couldn’t summon the excitement I brought to the classroom. I decided to switch to the role of , and enlisted a graduate student to help shoot and present the video.

It took me two hours to complete the five-minute clip, but it was so well received by viewers that it motivated me to create an account on Bilibili, one of China’s leading video-sharing websites. rice field. My lab wanted us to continue making short films in Chinese about the main topics of our research, such as digital fabrication in architecture and adaptive structures that can respond to stimuli. About 9 months after creating that account, our lab vlogs have amassed over 20,000 subscribers and he has nearly 3 million views, mostly in China. Our videos are usually around 5 minutes long and mainly attract an audience of colleagues, students and general public in her 20’s.

As a university professor and structural engineering researcher with an interdisciplinary background, I am always looking for exciting ways to help people understand and understand science. However, the COVID-19 pandemic has interrupted my in-person outreach events. Initially, my vlog was a hub for short clips in English that I used as an educational resource. My students took the lead in editing, translating, adding Chinese captions and uploading these clips. Starting with the translated video helped me understand what a compelling clip looks like in terms of length and style.

One day I posted a video of a 4D printing course. This involves heating the 3D printed structure to change its shape. It got over 20,000 views in an hour, and there were some nasty comments that caught my attention. and “Scientists are wasting our money!” These comments taught me that it takes courage to speak science to non-experts in all corners of life .

The negative comments only hardened my resolve and brought up the idea of ​​starting a lab vlog at our next lab meeting. Some of my graduate students were overjoyed. They were creating vlogs in their spare time for fun, but never thought of using them in an academic setting. As such, I recruited a vlogging team to coordinate efforts and produced my first original video in early February.

Managing vlogs adds extra time to my role as supervisor, but it’s a great opportunity to work collaboratively with my students. It takes a team of 2-3 students to create one video, with 14 graduate students and her 15+ undergraduates taking turns. On Monday, I sit down with them and pick a topic. Unlike research discussions that I lead, my students are experts in how to make vlogging fun for their subscribers. They prepare her script for two days and select presenters for the clip.

Filming usually takes place on Thursday afternoons. At first, I shot with my smartphone, but I bought a GoPro action camera to increase the resolution. It was a lot of fun when the GoPro was in motion. Sometimes an actor spits out Internet slang, but the cameraman laughs so hard that the shoot has to be stopped.

Filming the clip created a new dynamic compared to a regular lab meeting. My students explained to me that posting a vlog to hundreds of online viewers is very different from presenting her million-dollar idea to a grants committee. My students can choose topics that make no sense to me at all, yet receive thousands of likes.

In addition, video blogging has given me the opportunity to discover different abilities and personalities of my students outside the academic environment. One of her students who is good at coding also happens to be a video editing guru. Another student is hesitant to try new methods in his research, but takes risks with new shooting styles. All my students are speaking much more frankly than usual. Vlog provides a unique opportunity to overcome psychological barriers and acquire strong communication skills.

Our vlog has further enriched our research. The comments section of each video and the scrolling messages from viewers that appear above the videos on Bilibili, “Damu”, not only amaze us, but also help people find ideas that lead to new research projects. It’s a mini forum for posting. Some time ago, I uploaded an interesting Material Design strategy video, and my subscribers suggested multiple ways to apply it. One of our subscribers, a lead engineer at a well-known footwear company, contacted us to discuss a joint project on designing soles with enhanced shock absorption. We are currently proposing high-performance midsole designs to them and testing them in our lab.

Trying to capture the joy and curiosity of science in our vlogs is the most fruitful way for me and my students to communicate with a wider audience. My students seamlessly apply their investigative skills to creating vlogs. They gathered key information for the script, adjusted the presentation style to suit the audience, and patiently edited and refined the video before posting. We have found that uploading well-made video clips provides a more sustainable and lasting public platform than in-person events. I often receive emails from prospective students who have subscribed to our channel and want to join my research team.

Going forward, our vlog could be a good place to test ideas before embarking on a full-scale research project. My courses have started using video as a form of assessment, asking students to record clips of homework and course projects. More vlogs by researchers not only help unlock the mysteries of research life and academia, but also show a realistic image of ourselves, break stereotypes, and inspire more people to pursue science. I would encourage you to.

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competing interests

The authors declare no competing interests.