Shaina Khan's Individual Contribution Page

Summer 2009 Contributions

This semester I was a member of the Floating Flocs Team. At the beginning of the summer, I helped to install the new parts to our apparatus and to debug Process Controller. Besides attending team meetings, at which I was part of making plans, setting up experiments, and analyzing data from experiments, I spent extra time editing our Wiki pages to try to keep them accurate and easy to read. This seems to have helped keep our pages fairly well organized.

In addition, I did some of the preliminary research into hydrophobic surfaces. I also took and edited most of the photographs we included on our Wiki pages this summer.

Fall 2008 Contributions

During the Fall 2008 semester, I was a member of the Pilot Plant team. More specifically, I was one of two members of the Sedimentation Tank sub-team. My partner Kellie and I had designed three experiments to perform to test the advantages of using lamella in sedimentation. However, since sludge blankets never formed simultaneously in the two tanks, I put my efforts into improving the Pilot Plant and its wiki pages.

Kellie and I each spent several afternoons at the pilot plant trying to form sludge blankets. We also tried to design a way to drain a sludge blanket to a certain height. In addition, I worked with the operators to fix equipment that wasn't working, such as peristaltic pumps. I also worked with Tom to fix one of the biggest problems we had this semester: we discovered before Thanksgiving Break that alum dosing had not been running for some time. Tom and I troubleshot this problem and determined an optimal alum dose for winter conditions. I've documented these and other problems on the Troubleshooting page.

In addition, I was the unofficial photographer for the pilot plant team this semester. Most of the photos we've taken I've embedded in or attached to the sed tank pages. I also created a permalink to the pictures we took this semester so that future teams would be able to access them.

Among the pages I've created are the Fall 2008 portion of Construction History, the Troubleshooting page, the Maintenance and Tips page, and about half of the Sed Tank Team Meeting Minutes pages. I've also helped improve old pages, including Construction History and Methods and Results.

My biggest project has been creating the Beginners' Guide portion of the Pilot Plant Page. This project grew out of the frustration and confusion my teammates and I have experienced this semester. I've added a glossary, a sort of virtual tour, and troubleshooting and tips pages.

Pages Created