Day 30

Today was the last day of the internship. I worked on my presentation and practiced it a couple times. I was able to finish it within 10 minutes by the end of the day.
This was a good experience and I learnt a lot about conducting research and about Electron Paramagnetic Resonance spectroscopy.

Day 29

Today we all practiced our presentations in the auditorium until noon. I think my presentation went well except I went about a minute over time. I'll practice my presentation again tomorrow and probably leave out a few extra details so I can complete it in 10 minutes. After lunch  I organized all the files I had created during my time at the internship and shared them with Dr Hornak so he can have copy of everything. I then reviewed my presentation and added an acknowledgments slide.

Day 28

This morning we began to take data using the MOUSE of the MOUSE logo we had created with DPPH in order to create an image. The DPPH signal was uncharacteristically low, however, and we could not figure out why. I then began to work on my presentation and timed myself going through slides. Currently I am a little over 10 minutes when I go through my entire presentation.
I had to leave early today (around 2:30) because I had to go to preseason sports practice.

Day 27

I finished my presentation today. I added a new slide with some more technical details of how EPR works. I'm not sure I will have time to go over that during my presentation but I will probably keep it at the end so I can use it if there are any questions about how EPR works.
On Monday I'm probably going to help Dr Hornak create a new image of the MOUSE logo based of the stencil of the MOUSE made with DPPH.

Day 26

Today I mainly worked on my presentation. I worked on editing the images I would include and adding content. I also found a short animation about NMR spectroscopy that can be used to explain EPR as well which I might include in my presentation.
This is the video I might include:
http://www.rsc.org/learn-chemistry/collections/spectroscopy/introduction#NMRSpectroscopy

Day 25

In the morning meeting today we all gave updates on our projects. Today I went over my presentation with my advisor and he gave me a few edits and suggestions. Then we started to scan the EMR MOUSE logo again so we could create an image. The data we had collected on Monday to create the image was not accurate because the motor we used to move the logo over the MOUSE was getting stuck. We retook all the data today and I then worked on aligning the data so the image would become clearer. Then I put the data into the heatmapper program on heatmapper.ca and created the image.
Here's the image we created:

Day 24

In the morning I finished creating the intensity plots I began yesterday. Then I continued to work on my presentation. I finished putting in all the images I wanted to include and now have around 15 slides. I'll run through it with my advisor tomorrow to make sure that I have included everything and then I will decide whether I should add more slides or not. In the afternoon we worked with the micrometer & motor setup and cleaned it to ensure that it was not getting stuck when moving across the MOUSE.
Here's an image of the micrometer/motor setup:

Day 23

Today we finished going over our outlines in the morning meeting. First I worked on cutting out the EPR MOUSE logo with a razor blade to make a stencil. Then I scanned an image of the EMR (electron magnetic resonance) MOUSE (we created a logo of the  MOUSE with the letters EMR as well because it can detect magnetic signals as well as paramagnetic). After lunch I worked on rearranging/reorganizing the data so the image of the MOUSE was clearer. I worked with heatmapper.ca (the online tool we use to make the intensity plots) to make the graphs but I kept getting an error message. This may be due to a glitch in the online software. I will check online tool again tomorrow.

Day 22

Today was the Undergraduate Research Symposium and I went to several presentations and posters. I went to Baron's presentation which was titled "Magnetic Field Mapping for a Unilateral LFEPR Spectrometer" and I got some ideas for my final presentation. One idea that I got was to incorporate my rationale and application for the project in the beginning or middle of my presentation as opposed to the end. I also went and saw the "Laser Light Scattering of Ternary Mixtures to Derive the Gibbs Free Energy" which I found very interesting because it was related to what I had learned in school last year.  I then spent some more time looking at all the different posters and headed back to the Carlson building. I also worked on my presentation a little today and added some more images. I had to leave early today because I had to go to an interview.

Day 21

In the morning meeting we continued to go over outlines. Today I continued work on my presentation and also showed Tristan, Ashley & Peter my lab and the work that I was doing. I also went and saw the lab that Henry & Ronny were working in. I finished putting in all the content that I would want to put in my presentation. After that I worked on figuring out what images I would put in my presentation and editing them.
One of the images I worked on was the color scale for the intensity plots of the sensitivity of the RF probe. The values are in millitesla (mT) which represents the magnetic field.

Day 20

In the morning meeting we reviewed some of our outlines for our presentations. Today I mainly worked on my presentation because the rest of the students working in the lab had their presentations at the end of this week. After creating most of the slides for my presentation I also made some more images. One of the images I created was a graph of the magnetic field versus the position the probe was on the barcode. I have also included a picture of the barcode and you can see how the peaks on the graph below correspond to the thickness of the black line on the barcode. The dips, or relative minimums, represent where the white lines are (where there is no black ink).

             

 

Day 19

Today I mainly did some data collecting and organizing. I organized the different plots and spreadsheets I had made a few weeks ago and created some README files for Dr Hornak this morning. Then we collected some data with the MOUSE of an acrylic painting. We collected data in a 10cm x 10cm grid over the painting to see if we could detect any ferromagnetic signals. Collecting data over the painting took most of the day because we had to do it manually (the painting was textured so it would have either gotten stuck or some paint would have been scraped off if we had tried to slide it over the MOUSE with a motor). At the end of the day we realized that the data was too inconsistent to make any definite conclusion or graphic regarding the ferromagnetic signal in the acrylic paint so we stopped collecting data.
Here's a photo of the setup we used to collect data over the painting: