Weeks 3 and 4

Hello!

I am so sorry for not having posted as frequently these last few weeks. However, this is due to the fact that there have been some setbacks:

In research, many instruments are incredibly expensive so labs tend to share some of these instruments. The potentiostat, an instrument that is integral to my experiments, is a good example. Because it is so expensive, the lab I am working in and another lab in the building are sharing it.  This other lab has been using the instrument quite frequently these last 2 weeks, creating some difficulties for the advancement on the coating of platinum electrodes project.

This week however, we will receive the potentiostat again, and I will be able to finally coat the electrodes. Then, on Tuesday or Wednesday I will take these electrodes to an electron microscopy lab in the Chemical Sciences Building and have some scans taken to double check that the electrodes are actually coated.

In addition, either this week or next week I will be able to watch an experiment in which a mouse brain is exposed and some carbon fiber electrodes are inserted. (This isn't directly part of my project, however I think it would be cool to see this happen.)

Over the last two weeks however, Drew and I have made great progress on our sensor project. Here's an update:

• In the last two weeks we have been working on building a circuit (using resistors, capacitors, diodes, wires, etc.) where we tap a sensor and then we can see a spike in a signal on the screen of a signal detector.  All in all we worked about 20 hours just to build a circuit that works properly. Our next goal is to write an arduino code that can read a signal output from the piezo (the sensor) and can store the information. Our goal is to make this completely independent from a big computer. This project will take much longer than the length of my SRP, yet I am thrilled to be a part of its beginning.

      **** I would like to post a picture but the grad student I'm working with said I should't until                                                   

               we've finished. 

In summary:

For the sensor project: The goal for the rest of the project is to get this sensor up and running with just an arduino and no computer. 

For the electrode project: I must coast some electrodes, have someone run electron microscopy on them, and if it is revealed that they really are coated, hopefully in a few weeks these electrodes can be inserted in a mouse/rat brain for testing.  

**** This may not occur until after my SRP because it could become a lengthy process.