ngc4

Fall 2008- Automated Chem Doser

I spent the first two or three weeks of this year helping with organizational aspects of the team than with research. I put together the first class meetings and helped Alissa transition into the team leader role by working on class schedules and assignments. I also re-organized the entire Research wing of the wiki and developed wiki organizational guidelines, as well as re-writing and organizing the Flow Controller section of the wiki to use as an example of the organizational scheme.

My research set-up was not returned to the lab until the 3rd week of the semester, which is when I learned about the actual physical apparatus. Since then I have written a MathCAD sheet for the design. The sheet is not working completely yet, but it is largely done.

I have also modified the apparatus (and written an explanation of it) from my experiences playing with it (and having it produce very erratic results) in the lab. There were some pieces that caused the tubes to balance incorrectly and cause "hidden headloss". I set up the improved apparatus with pressure sensors to collect precise data, and I have taken a few data sets with it so far.

I plan to continue the data collection and get the MathCAD sheet working soon so I have plenty of time to compare the data to the theoretical expectations this semester. I have already found one more modification that I need to make to the apparatus from this preliminary data set, though.

Spring 2008

This semester I have focused mainly on organizing team class meetings, organizing and populating the wiki, and outreach. I came up with a Calendar of class and forum times, and (attempted) to make outlines for each class. Some weeks this entailed just contacting groups to give teach-ins, while other weeks it involved more thoughtful attempts to construct discussions for forums.

The wiki was new this semester, and I spent my free time trying to introduce it to the group in an efficient manner. We had to devise an entire structure for page creation, and a way to allow subteams to pass their work cleanly to the next semester. This also tied in well with my attemps to streamline assignments and grading for AguaClara. I created Assignments section in the wiki in an attempt to make it clear to students what was expected. I also spent a fair amount of time just reading through the wiki and deleting blank pages or moving pages that had been added in the wrong places, or helping team members learn how to use the wiki. The last aspect of the wiki I was heavily involved in was creating common pages for the team. I formatted the Home page, attempting to make it appear nicer, I tranferred many of the materials from the old website to the wiki, and I wrote a Technology Overview and ran an Events page.

The third aspect of my main contribution to the team this semester was through outreach. The outreach team did not have any engineers with team experience, so early in the semester they came to me with many technical questions. As the team shrank over the semester, I took on more regular outreach tasks. I have made two final posters, for the ESW conference and the EPA Science Forum, and helped edit/rewrite the hallway poster. I also took care of organizing and running numerous info sessions and demo plant demonstrations.