Today we finished painting the MOUSE logo with the epoxy and paramagnetic pigment mixture. Once we did that we had to wait for around an hour for the logo to dry completely. For the rest of the day we ran a picture of the barcode (printed with magnetic ink) over the MOUSE and collected data to see if we could then replicate the barcode into a 1D image. Analyzing the barcode using the MOUSE took most of the day for various reasons. One reason was that we had to slowly pull the barcode (using the micrometer setup in the picture) over the MOUSE by hand at a constant pace (we kept a constant pace by using an online metronome). The other reason it took all day was because the data we collected had discrepancies at the ends of the barcode. After running some tests we determined that the cause of this issue was the printer, not the MOUSE. We guessed that the printer was either running out of ink or it distributed the toner unevenly on the paper. Then we analyzed the EPR MOUSE logo that we had painted earlier. However, we were not able to see a signal on any of the letters the logo (probably because the pigment was not concentrated enough in the epoxy). During lunch I went to astronomy/astrophysics talk. After that we retested some previous paint samples that we knew had a clear signal to confirm that the MOUSE was working properly. These samples did indeed give a signal so we now know that we need to paint with linseed oil rather than epoxy so we can layer the paint and thereby increase the concentration of the pigment in the painting.
Here's a photo of the micrometer setup. The MOUSE is situated under the glass pane which is then moved using the knob at the rightmost side of the photo (right under the larger, red EPR machine).
You can faintly see the MOUSE under the blue packet (the packet is filled with a paramagnetic pigment powder that we were testing).
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