In the morning the whole group left for the University in Tarbes -1hour from Auch- , where some former students are studying there. The Civil Engineering building is gorgeous and was recently built, it is mainly made of wood and window panes. The professors and some of their students welcomed us with a quiz about bio-sourced material -such as corn, which is mainly present in our rural territory. Everybody happily participated in the game and were quite surprised by what they discovered. Then we were welcomed to enter a beautiful lecture room where doctoral students and their professors presented us their findings on the theme of the use of waste plants as possible material for the building industry. It was really interesting and motivating for us.

In the afternoon we drove deeper into the mountains -we all thanked our bus driver for this epic journey in those tiny winding roads! We arrived at a specific workshop area to discover the different possibilities of using bio-sourced material for building a house : creation of adobe bricks (mud-bricks fired at sun), building of outer walls with a material made with our own tiny hands... 

Everybody took part in those workshops and seemed really happy to make some handy work, despite the heat that affected the region that day! As you may have guessed, the return journey took place in a great calm and silence, as most of us were sleeping.

Thursday 6th October

Hard-work morning. Two Civil Engineering teachers from our school prepared us different workshops on the mechanical resistance of some specific material. We worked and were able to run tests on samples made out of straw, maize or concrete. After having run the mechanical tests and having made some calculations, we classified our results. Some other students were running tests on the resistance of our bio-sourced concrete compared to regular concrete -they used a sort of mechanical hammer to tear off pins that were drilled into the different concrete samples. 

The afternoon had a more ceremonial and official touch, as we were invited to the Conseil Départemental (the council of the region) to present our Erasmus+ project, its implications and the results we were hoping to reach. It was a very impressive moment as some students had to make their presentation at the stage of the Chamber of the Representatives. We were really proud of our colleagues because their reading was clear and touched the audience. It was an excellent preparation for the students' final exams - and particularly for the French students as regards to the grand Oral that they will have to perform.

Friday 7th October

We created some reports on the tests and findings of the week. Unfortunately, some groups had to leave for the airport, while others were working on their final presentations and enjoyed the few remaining hours together.