Highlights

A team of a dozen third- and fourth-grade students forcefully stepped on the clear, white, sticky floor mat to remove the dust from their shoes before eagerly suiting up in full-body cleanroom suits at the University’s Nanofabrication Center in the Electrical Engineering and Computer Science building Friday.

Dressed in the white “bunny suits” used to keep dust and dirt particles out of the nanofabrication labs, the two teams - named the Nano Monkey Legends and the Robo Monkey Bandits - called out “nano” and smiled while posing for a group photo. The monkey-themed team names stem from school tradition.

Delaney Perkins, a third-grader at Eisenhower Elementary School in Hopkins, where the 12 students attend, said the bunny suits are worn “so that dead hair and skin don’t get into the nanotechnology stuff.”

The tour gave Minnesota students participating in the 2006 FIRST LEGO League “Nanoquest” competition an opportunity to see nanotech labs and learn from experts and researchers in the University’s Materials Research Science and Engineering Center.