There was failure in the synthesis of the polymers at the beginning of the week but after Wednesday things started to work better!
My mentor uses Python for calculations and graphs. So, I think that would be an interesting thing to look into in the future when learning coding. This week I created an excel WS for calculations instead of hand calculating everything. I made a mistake in my hand calculations which took some time away in lab.
Failures and Successes
Photopolymerization
- Aftermath of placing samples under UV was not successful until Wednesday.
- Purpose of UV light is to “lock” in the alignment “shape memory”
Wednesday afternoon and on
- 1 concentration of samples worked so we are working on that now
- We are adding another reagent to see effects
About over a week ago, we also had a group meeting where a person in the research group, an undergrad, gave a short safety talk. I think it was very important so that people know where everything is. For example, you should know where the eyewash station is without having to look for it in case of an emergency. I plan to use this in my classroom during the 1st week of school when going over safety. Safety is important all the time anywhere. 🙂
Your project is so cool! The shapes that you showed us in the tour and how the polymer was able to bounce back to its original shape after the UV light was really awesome!