Lab Fun

15 Jan 2007 at 23:52 // under Facebook Chemical Engineering University

My first thought this morning:

"The lab we will be doing today is covered in chalk powder - it will be messy".

Chalk being an enemy of me and my clothes, due to it's non blackness, it would make sense to wear my lab coat again. I also thought ahead to make Kaylee a coat (with air holes) so she wouldn't get chalk where chalk shouldn't go.

Unfortunately the whole being prepared thing is not as great as I had hoped because the universe automatically conspires to undo all hard work. Within a few minuets of starting the experiment (before any readings were taken) I smelt smoke. Our motor was burning itself out. After turning the motor off, the lab technician came over removed the drive belt then tried to turn the motor on again. Nothing. Replaced the fuse. Turn on. Woops blow the circuit to half the room. Put back on circuit and replace fuse. Other technician comes over spins the motor manually a wee bit then gets the first to turn on again. Same effect.

By now we are an hour into a 5 hour lab and nothing to show for it except 3 blown fuses. The rest of the day consisted of going to lunch and hoping that they find another motor somewhere else in KB or go out and buy a new one.

Whilst eating an early lunch, ever hopeful that the new pump will have arrived by the time we get back, Kaylee decided to object to the new lab coat and stopped working. My view of technology was dropping fast. (Update: Luckily once back at the flat Kaylee started to work.)

With less than an hour left of the lab still only three blown fuses to show for our efforts and considering each run was expected to take over an hour to go and no pump had arrived we were told just to go home. So I now have one week to write up a lab report with absolutely no data.

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