2 more weeks

Only two more weeks of my REU left! We are heading to Aimes, IA tomorrow morning to give presentations on our projects at the All-Iowa Glass Conference. There are going to be 8 talks, 1 by my partner and I, and 1 by another Coe student, also both Coe advisors are giving the talks and the rest are from elsewhere. The rest of the research students at Coe are making posters to present. Adam (my partner) and I had too much information to do a poster, because we have almost 2 complete projects finished. We get twenty minutes so that is plenty of time to talk about everything we have accomplished. I have spent the whole day making the power point look good and going over little details to get this presentation finished up.
The rest of the week we will be working on analysing some of the data we got back from Canada on NMR and writing our paper(s). This next two weeks is going to go quickly since we will have presentations for the REU students starting a week from Wednesday.
Time to get back to work!

Trip to Kansas City

Haley in one of the fountains

Flame Sealing A Quartz Tube

Preparing the sample in the glove bag

The ESR Machine

The prepared/flame sealed quartz tubs

This week 4 of us made a trip to Liberty, MO which is very close to Kansas City. We were going to a college there, William Jewell to run a test on some of the glass that has been made at Coe this summer. We were looking at the Electron Spin Resonance spectra of diferent compositions, which will be analysed and give us a better understanding of the structure of these glasses. Some of the samples we had made react badly with water so they cannot be out in the air. They were made in the glove box at Cor to avoid this issue, but William Jewell does not have a glove box. They had to be transported in a desecator/vacuum which got to sit on my lap for the whole 4 hour 30 minute trip. Which sounds bad, but it meant I got the front seat :) We got there Wednesday evening and started work on Thursday. We had to prepare the sample in a glove bag which looks shockingly similar to a trash bag with built in gloves. We hd to grind up the glass and put it in tubes, which were then flame sealed to keep the air out. After they were sealed we ran them in the machine to get the spectra. After 2 days of this we had ran 28 samples for which we have a lot of data that now needs to be analyzed. Thursday evening after dinner at Buffalo Wild Wings we drove to Kansas City to walk around. We went to The Plaza. It was full of expensive shops and restaraunts and fountains. It was beautiful and we had great weather so that was quite a bit of fun. We made the trip back to Coe Friday afternoon. Above are some pictures of what we were doing at William Jewell. And I guess Monday is back to work on making glass and running more tests with the Raman Spectrometer.

Project 1 -> DONE

My first Research project is finished!
Last week we finished making all of our samples of glass and got to ship it to England. It was very exciting. We had to write a paper detailing the entire procedure of making the glass as well as information on all of the quality control steps we took. Once that was checked 327+ (exaggeration) times, we went to FedEx and spent an enormous amount of money to have a 1.5 pound box shipped to the UK.
So now what?
Well, we got another project, with no exact deadline or requirements. We are making more glass, out of different chemicals. Going to learn how to use another technique for identifying the structure of the glass. But mostly I am just working on the paper for the first project.
I also have to give a "mid-summer REU" presentation. It's just a 5 minute power point presentation about what I have done so far, some of my results, and what I am going to be spending the rest of the summer on. I don't mind presentations, so it won't be bad at all, plus they are supplying bagels :) so I can't complain.
This week we have a lot going on. Tonight we are going to watch "Field of Dreams" because we will be taking a little field trip there next Monday (It's the pride and joy of Iowa). Then tomorrow evening we are all going to go to see the local minor league baseball team play. They are the Kernels, wouldn't expect to see that anywhere except Iowa or Illinois, haha. Wednesday I have to give my power-point presentation at 8:30 am. Then during lunch we have our weekly talk by one of the professors. After lunch 4 of us get to go to Kansas City, MO to deliver some glass and spend a few days learning about ESR spectroscopy. I wasn't on the project that made the glass, but they let a few extra people go. 2 REU students (me and my roommate) and 2 Coe students are all heading down there until Friday. Then on Sunday one of the professors is hosting a lunch at his house...authentic Italian! Should be a good time. Looking forward to this busy but exciting week.
The 4th of July weekend marked our 1/2 way point. Got our first paycheck last week, which I was anxiously awaiting. I cannot believe I am already 1/2 way done with my summer here. Day by day is slow, but looking back the whole thing has gone rather quickly. I think the 2nd half with go even quicker because I don't have any specific deadlines but we are making quite a few trips around the area.
Doc (my advisor here) is encouraging us to all perfect our group power-points because each group will be presenting on July 29th at a convention at Iowa State. So we are working on making our power points high quality.
As you can tell I've been pretty busy and its only going to get worse, but luckily I got to head home for the 4th of July and have a nice relaxing long weekend in preparation for the 2nd half of this REU.
Time to get back to work!
Gloria