U of R tour

Well today we went to the U of R to see their lab. I found the lab tour very interesting because it was partially about some of the things I am interested in, the brain. I took AP Psychology this year and that's all we learned about and I found all the information today very interesting. But the one thing I didn't like about the tour was the mouse blood diffusing thing. YUCK! The intern took the drugged up mouse, taped it down, cut open its organs and all this blood starting coming out. She was trying to diffuse all of it's blood so she could remove its brain. But the thing is, that it was still alive! I mean I wish they would have killed it first so it wouldn't have to die like that. And the most disgusting part was watching all of its organs sort of convulse in and out of its open stomach. It was gross. Normally I don't get grossed out by that stuff at all, like I can handle blood, I have a strong stomach. But this, I could not handle. After blood started oozing out, I felt my face get extremely hot and I started to sweat. I had to step away. I couldn't watch anymore. That poor mouse! =(

Anyways besides that gruesome sight, the tour was very interesting and informative. I liked it.

When we got back, I processed some film and scanned images. But I have to leave early for a doctors appointment so I didn't really have time to do much today. Maybe tomorrow.

Hello U of R interns

Well this morning we had the interns from U of R come in and visit us. They seemed like nice people.They took a tour of all of our labs. Mine was second. I guess you could say I was a LITTLE nervous. Speaking in front of an audience is NOT my thing. Ha wait until August 22nd when I have to give my presentation. Oh man. Anyways I guess I did an OK job.

After that, we had pizza. FREE pizza. Even better!

Then I went over to the color science building with Jonathan to be a volunteer for his experiment. He had me look at sets of images and had me rate them from best to worst based on color, contrast, brightness, overall image quality, etc. I thought it was pretty interesting. And I got chocolate for a reward! I'm such a chocoholic.

The rest of the day I processed some film and did more analysis on the computer. That's pretty much my day. Off to the U of R tomorrow!

Day 11 (for me)

So today wasn't that bad either. This morning, we took a tour of the color science lab and I thought it was pretty interesting. We were able to see 3 labs. The first was the lab where images are produced with precise lighting. They use paintings to model in their images sometimes which I thought was interesting. The second lab was a building lab and they had a bunch of tools and stuff. The third lab, I liked the best because it had a half-circle room with a white sheet around the circular part and LED lights shining on it in different colors. They said that they use that room, so when someone is looking at an image, they can shine different lights in their background to confuse the viewer. Then we were shown a Sony monitor that has so many more colors than a normal television or monitor. It was really thick.

After the tour I developed more film until lunch. I went to the new Barnes and Noble at R.I.T. during my lunch. It's really nice there. I'd advise you to stop in and look around =)

After lunch I scanned all of the images I developed and did more particle analysis. Yup that's pretty much it!

Eye Tracking Experiment

Well today wasn't too bad, considering it's a Monday. This morning, I processed some more film and sized some more particles. But we are having trouble with the calibration and magnification. Something isn't working right because we have a scale, but our data doesn't match the scale. It's frustrating. This afternoon, I went over with Roxanne to do an eye tracking experiment. It was pretty interesting because she told me to look at different points on the screen and then tracked the movement of my eyes. I thought it was especially interesting because she made me do it lots of times because she couldn't track my eyes correctly because I guess they were reflecting light? I didn't know that contacts could do that. Anyways she had me look at 66 pictures of PET and MRI scans to pick out "spots" and then tracked my eyes. After that, I scanned more images on the computer which took forever because this scanner is sooooo slow!

And again...

Today wasn't too bad I guess. This morning I came in for like not even an hour and then i had a doctors appointment. It was my physical. I hate those. I had to get 3 shots, one including the tetnis (sp?) shot. As I'm typing this, my left arm aches. =/

Anyways when I did get back to the lab, I developed film (my favorite thing to do, and that's not sarcasm) and scanned more images onto the computer for analysis. I calculated averages of diameters of the particles for various magnifications. And for the rest of the day I will be doing the same thing. Scanning and analysis. Not that exciting, but someone needs to do it, might as well be me I guess ha.

TGIF!

Yet Again

Today was even more slow than yesterday. This morning I developed some film on my own which went pretty well actually. I was proud of myself. Anyways, after lunch I scanned the images onto the computer and did some measuring and analysis. That's pretty much it, nothing interesting happened today. More tomorrow hopefully...

SLOW

Yeah so today was extremely slow for me. This morning I scanned more negative particle images onto the computer. Around 1 the interns went to the weekly science talk (sorry I don't really know what it's called)and it was with the ultrasound group. I thought it was pretty interesting though I didn't understand some of it, but that's okay. But the best part I thought was the free pizza because that was delicious =) Anyways for the rest of the day I scanned more images. There wasn't really a whole lot for me today because one of our microscopes is down so I can't develop any more new film. Oh well, hopefully that will happen tomorrow...

Bausch and Lomb!

So today we went on our little field trip to Bausch and Lomb which was kind of neat. We all got our own name tags then we went to this locker room and had to put on a lab coat thing, a hair net (even the guys haha), safety goggles, and ear plugs. I forget the man's name but he showed us around the mechanical part of the place where they actually made contacts. I thought it was really cool how it was all done by machines and it was interesting how you could see right through the glass and watch the machines move the contacts around. Then we went with this other guy (sorry I'm horrible with names) and he showed us this camera that he uses to fix the lighting on certain objects and he showed us this really cool light. It was kinda of bowl shaped and it had a hole in the bottom and you turned it up side down and put it over the object and it would take away the glare. How cool is that? Then we went into this other lab and this man and woman (again with the names...) showed us the things that they make to insert into the eye to fix certain problems. But its a mini lens and they shape it based on the person's eye shape. It was really neat. Then my favorite part was the optometrist, because that's a real interest of mine and I'm considering being and eye doctor. But anywho they showed us how the test people's eyes and they examine them on the computer using a color code. The computer shows the front of the eye, the back, the depth, and the topography of the eye. The cool colors (blue and purple) show depression. The warm colors (yellow, orange, red) show elevation. And the green just is in the middle I guess. But we got to take a look at some of our interns' eyes and it was pretty cool seeing the elevation near the cornea. I though that was very interesting. Then we went out to lunch at Amiels? Don't really remember if that was the name or not, I've never heard of it before or been there. It was okay I guess.

But the rest of the actual work day, I will be processing film. YAYYY ! And probably scanning the images onto my computer for analysis.

Ta ta for now !

I developed film!

Alright so back from vacation now. I was on a road trip to Minnesota, Wisconsin, and Chicago, Illinois with my family. Fun stuff =)

Anyways today was a pretty interesting morning. We had our meeting and talked about the field trip tomorrow and how that's going to go. I'm pretty excited. Rumor has it that we are actually going to see contact lenses being made. How cool is that? (Updates on that tomorrow).

But today I made a solution of film developer which was pretty neat. I used 3L of distilled water and mixed it with the powder mix from kodak. There were three baths going. The first one on the left was the developer. The middle was the stop bath which stops the developer from developing any further (hence STOP bath). The bath all the way to the right was the Fix bath which fixes and stabilizes the image. There are silver and bromide ions in the film and if not fixed, when brought into the light, they can blacken over time and ruin the image. So the fix bath protects the image. We filled the big bath of the three tubs in it, with water from a pump and used the Wing-Lych water temp controller to keep the water temp at 69.1 degrees. Then we opened the nitrogen tank and pumped N2 into the 3 baths every ten seconds so that it would oxidize the solutions. We put on gloves so that we could prevent fingerprinting the film canister or film. We placed the film in each bath for a certain period of time and then we placed it into a black tub with a semi-soapy solution which cleans the images and prevents water spots. Then we placed the film in the dryer cabinet for 30 min. And that was the magic of developing film!

I thought it was so cool to have the lights out and the red overhead lights. I've always wanted to take photography in high school and try to develop my own film, but I never have and never will. But at least I got my own little lesson :)

And the remainder of the day I will be scanning the images that I have developed and analyzing them. Fun stuff.

Day 4

Well today was a pretty laid back, slow day. I did the same thing as I worked on Tuesday which was measuring the areas of particles in TEM images on the computer using the program ImageJ. The purpose of measuring the areas of these particles is because we are trying to use them as a diesel fuel additive which increases the efficiency of the engine and increases gas per miles. So what I am doing is characterizing these particles by area and analyzing the samples.

Also today i worked on measuring the length of polymer particles which are used in polymer film which are biodegratable. These particles give the film strength so I have been analyzing the lengths and other properties of the particles.

And today is my last day this week as I am going on a family vacation. New post will be on Monday, July 21st.

Day 3

Today so far, we had our group intern meeting with Bob and talked about upcoming field trips. After the meeting, we had our id cards activated so I can get into the computer labs and other rooms. From there, I worked with Gary in the lab. He showed me his stirring and heating invention which I thought was really neat. There are three vertical metal plates along with a blade. The three metal plates are there to help stir from bottom to top rather that have it just be a circular stir like a whirpool. I took AP Chemistry this year so I think that really helped my understanding of what was taking place since we were working on a chemical reaction. First we mixed a couple solutions. We made a cerium (III) nitrate hexahydrate solution and an iron (III) nitrate nonhydrate solution. We added 1,117g of water to Gary's machine and heated the water to approximately 73 degrees celcius. We then slowly pumped the solutions we had made into the machine and watched the results. We measured the pH as we added different solutions and also the temperature every minute or so. We then added methoxyacetic acid to stabilize the solution. We then pumped in hydrogen peroxide to oxidize the solution which caused the pH to change. It also caused major foaming of the solution so we added a certain type of alcohol (I forget the name) into the bath to calm the foaming. Another thing I noticed was a color change of the solution. The solution was originally clear obviously, then turned to a pumpkin, halloween orange, and lastly it turned to almost a butterscotch color. Gary said that after we are done he gives it to another lab so they can study it too. I really enjoyed doing this experiment. It's like AP Chemistry all over again.

Day 2

Today I looked at various particle samples again but this time I measured the length of particles and bumps in the samples rather than the area of the particles. I learned how to magnify the samples so I could do many trials in finding the length of particles. I took 4 samples at each magnified level and averaged them out to see that each average was approximately the same for each trial. I also made several spread sheets on excel to compare the means of the areas and also the standard deviations. I found various issues with finding a constant result for the standard deviations of the same sample. I came to the conclusion that it was due to the magnification, though I don't understand why. I'll have to research more about that.

First Day of Internship

We started off the day with our meeting and talked about all the things we would be doing during the day. We went to the red barn to do some team building activities and it really helped me get to know a lot of the other interns. After lunch I went to my nanoimaging lab and learned about how to measure particle sizes using the computer program. It was neat how I was able to see the various sizes and shapes of different particles in a sample. I would like to learn how to do a lot more with this computer program.