The 8th Japan-UK-USA Nanotechnology Students' Summer School was held at MANA, NIMS, on August 27-31, 2012. The summer school was organized by a collaboration of the three institutes, MANA of NIMS, Japan, Nanoscience Centre of University of Cambridge, UK, and California NanoSystems Institute of UCLA, USA.

The workshop-style summer school was held with the instructors including Dr. Masakazu Aono and Dr. Tomonobu Nakayama from MANA, Prof. James Gimzewski and Dr. Adam Stieg from UCLA, Prof. Guy Le Lay from Université de Provence, France, and Prof. Christoph Gerber from University of Basel, Switzerland. The 19 participating students from MANA/NIMS, University of Cambridge, University College London, and UCLA were divided into three teams, where they became “agents” who should tackle the "Mission Impossible: Promoting ignorance, awareness, and crazy ideas" received from the instructors.

The students spent much time for group work to execute the mission through active discussion by "agents" with different backgrounds such as research field, culture, nationality and age.

Lectures by the instructors encouraged the students to think “crazy” while searching for innovative solutions to change the world with nanotechnology.

On the last day of the school, each team presented a mission report and had to deal with questions and comments from the instructors. The team “Bamboo Tiger” was selected for the “Best Presentation Award”.