It would be great if we could start a science meet up once a month? How about either the 3rd or 4th Tuesday of the month, or maybe 1st or 2nd Thursday of the month? What ever is best for those who are interested.
@Martin has a great collection of bunsen burners in the space with other assorted chemistry aparatus, I have some nice gas taps we could maybe install running of a gas bottle?
There are a few projects I would like to make a start on including making an electric arc furnace which is a great fusion of upcycling an old microwave oven, simple electronics and science. Have a look at this youtube video, it does not look that hard and once complete we could melt some metal! haha
It would also be good to get the mass spectrometer up and running, we could do with putting a couple of side pannels on it. Then we can all determine the mass of our molecules…!
Does anyone else have any other interesting science projects we could share?
@Giles 3rd Tuesday would probably get my vote, as then we have something happening on the 1st, 2nd, 3rd, and 4th week of each month, in addition to open nights.
I have a gas bottle from my days as a caravanner. I’ll check it still exists (I’m sure it does!). It’s probably mostly empty but it might not be. Typical Calor gas bottle. 15kg butane I think.
I don’t know if the lease says anything about having gas cylinders indoors. I do know that I’ve been trying to find a home for this thing for ages as my boat already came with two!
Science meet up on the 21st June! I will pop down the space today to remove the ion source and source ion optics from the Quattro Premier. I will then clean them at uni and bring them back ready to have another go at setting up the mass scale and resolution tomorrow on the 21st.
We also have a microwave oven that needs to be dissected to see how it works!
So, it is probably about time we did something useful with those mass specs… How about making some music?
Aim of the game is to analyse some simple molecules to gain an insite into how these instruments work, this will be a very basic introduction to a simple liquid chromatography mass spectrometry system - the Waters 3100 LC/MS
Once we have seen some peaks the output from the detector will then be interfaced to some musical instrumentation so that we can see what those molecules sound like!
The detector headamp outputs a 0-10 V signal that is proportional to the detected ion intensity signal ranging from 1 to 138000000 counts (0 to 10 V). In essence the mass spectrometer scans through the different ions generated by the ion source which are representitive of the sample solution that is being injected, so we can use these peaks recorded to characterise and/or elucidate what our sample is made out of. The peaks generated on the spectrum (like a bar graph) will have a height that is proportional to their intensity, the height of the peaks when monitored by a musical synthesiser with a 0 to 10 V control voltage input will play different notes, one volt per octave! There is also a CV to MIDI converter that we can have a go with.
I’d planned an Art & Techynology session that day, as I missed 4th April - the calendar was blank for 18th. I don’t know whether to run it at the same time - for anyone who wants to laser cut, or amend . . . .
Probably best to try not to run two events at the same time. Can be too confusing with two different conversations going on at the same time. Also good to spread it out and have the space occupied more of the time…
That said, not sure if @giles was planning this for during the day or the evening of 18th?
No, you stick with that date, @Giles - should be interesting.
I’ll abandon Art & Tech for this month, & focus on documenting everything I can think of on laser-cutting ahead of training day on 22nd. Then we’ll have stuff formalised so I can help people with whatever on first Tuesday in May, which I’ll start promoting.
Really sorry but I am not feeling to good at the moment going to have to cancel tonight but will re-arange in the not so distant future. Apologies for the short notice.
