I'm doing science and I'm still alive
I don't know if anyone still reads this thing, as I seem to have abandoned it for a year. But maybe you're doing that RSS thing that all the kids are talking about.
Anyways, today was my last day at work, which is taking a little getting used to. So, to commemorate that fact, here's a post I had been meaning to make for a while. I give you: the three coolest pieces of lab equipment I've worked with that don't take up a whole room (I'm qualifying that because otherwise the VDD8 would win hands down (with an honorable mention to the VDD2 for reminding me of the Voight-Kampff machine).
Third place goes to the Thermal Desorption Unit, which I've mentioned earlier:
(this is not it, but it's similar)
It wins points for being a clever sort of contraption and for having the best name, but loses points for being a pain in the butt to fix.
Second place goes to the Gas Totalizer:
All the gas totalizer does is measure out a set quantity of gas for the preparation of vapor samples. On the one hand, it suffers from a byzantine user interface and the fact that it doesn't do anything I couldn't do on my own with a mass flow controller and a stopwatch. On the other hand, it's housed in an excitingly classy wooden cube.
First place goes to the bubble meter:
This is used to measure gas flow. It's also a clever little gizmo...once in the past I had to rig up a cruder version of this with a tube and a modified graduated cylinder. What you do is you put some soapy water in the in the cylinder and attach the tube near the bottom, and cause a bubble to form. The bubble expands up the tube, and you can track the increase in volume over time, which tells you how much gas is flowing through the tube. The bubble meter does the same thing, but with fancy electronic sensors, so all you have to do is press a button to operate it. Other things I like about it: 1) it reminds me of the bubble gun from the Ghostbusters video game for Genesis 2) there are very few parts and none of them are user-serviceable, so when it breaks, it's not my problem.
But I guess it's not my problem now anyways.
Onwards!
Anyways, today was my last day at work, which is taking a little getting used to. So, to commemorate that fact, here's a post I had been meaning to make for a while. I give you: the three coolest pieces of lab equipment I've worked with that don't take up a whole room (I'm qualifying that because otherwise the VDD8 would win hands down (with an honorable mention to the VDD2 for reminding me of the Voight-Kampff machine).
Third place goes to the Thermal Desorption Unit, which I've mentioned earlier:
(this is not it, but it's similar)
It wins points for being a clever sort of contraption and for having the best name, but loses points for being a pain in the butt to fix.
Second place goes to the Gas Totalizer:
All the gas totalizer does is measure out a set quantity of gas for the preparation of vapor samples. On the one hand, it suffers from a byzantine user interface and the fact that it doesn't do anything I couldn't do on my own with a mass flow controller and a stopwatch. On the other hand, it's housed in an excitingly classy wooden cube.
First place goes to the bubble meter:
This is used to measure gas flow. It's also a clever little gizmo...once in the past I had to rig up a cruder version of this with a tube and a modified graduated cylinder. What you do is you put some soapy water in the in the cylinder and attach the tube near the bottom, and cause a bubble to form. The bubble expands up the tube, and you can track the increase in volume over time, which tells you how much gas is flowing through the tube. The bubble meter does the same thing, but with fancy electronic sensors, so all you have to do is press a button to operate it. Other things I like about it: 1) it reminds me of the bubble gun from the Ghostbusters video game for Genesis 2) there are very few parts and none of them are user-serviceable, so when it breaks, it's not my problem.
But I guess it's not my problem now anyways.
Onwards!
posted by Evan at 9:47 PM
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