In the future, solid objects will react, sense, change and move according to their surroun’‘smart materials’. These are metals, plastics, fabrics and fluids that react to the outside world without any human involvement, and they promise to change the way we live. Anna Ploszajski is an award-winning materials scientist, engineer and communicator, and in 2017 was named Young Engineer of the Year by the Royal Academy of Engineering. She is a proud member of the Science Showoff Talent Factory and regularly performs stand-up comedy about materials and engineering as part of Science Showoff at venues from the local pub to the Edinburgh Fringe. In 2017 she was a FameLab national finalist. This talk was filmed in the Ri on 19 March 2018. --- Thank you for our Patreon supporters who help us make more videos like this: Ashok Bommisetti, Greg Nagel, Lester Su, Rebecca Pan and Will Knott. --- The Ri is on Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/TheRoyalInsti... and Twitter: http://twitter.com/ri_science and Facebook: http://www.facebook.com/royalinstitution and Tumblr: http://ri-science.tumblr.com/ Our editorial policy: http://www.rigb.org/home/editorial-po... Subscribe for the latest science videos: http://bit.ly/RiNewsletter