Busy Week.

It's been a busy week.

Last weekend was full of goal sheets and powerpoints.
Monday was full of research and worrying about giving my presentation.
Tuesday morning was full of worry and Tuesday afternoon was full of presentations. I was super nervous and sped through mine in typical Ellen fashion but apparently it was decent anyway and I didn't completely butcher it.

Wednesday I went to the lab and finished soaking monolayers and analyzing them. I got there in the morning and finished all my monolayers by noon so then after lunch all I had to do was use FTIR. I had 12 samples and so FTIR took me about three hours. I went back to my dorm after and analyzed the data. It didn't really tell me as much as I hoped.

Thursday I started making stamps in Dr. Trinkle's lab. I went there in the morning and learned how to make the stamps and made a couple. I also read a paper on the protocols of microcontact printing while I was waiting for my first stamps to set. This paper suggested making them taller so that you could hold the stamps with my fingers. I used the laser cutter to cut three of the same molds. I stacked them on top of each other to make a taller mold and poured the PDMS. I put this in the oven to cure and so while it cured I went over to Dr. Berron's lab and used the stamps I made in the morning. I stamped using all 4 solutions for three different durations: 10s, 20s, 30s with re-inking in between. I then measured the contact angle for each. By the time this was complete it was 6:30 and I was ready to go home.

Friday was a very busy day. I got Dr. Trinkle's lab early to get my tall PDMS stamps out of the mold. I cracked the silicon chip getting the stamps out and felt terrible about it. This was the last silicon wafer that was smooth. Dr. Trinkle assured me that it was alright and if the worst thing I do is brake an $8 wafer, I'm doing fine. After acquiring my stamps I went back to Dr. Berron's lab and stamped all four solutions. This time I placed the stamps three times, but did them for the same duration and did not re-ink in between stamps. I had to measure the contact angle for each one. It was about 11:30 when this was finished. And then I proceeded to do FTIR. For four and a half hours. I had plasma clean the control chip, which I dropped and had to plasma clean again. It was just that kind of a day. It was around 4 o'clock when I finally finished FTIR and then went back to my dorm and packed up to go home.

I'm glad I got to go home. But it doesn't feel like it's been three weeks already. I'm really close with my family and I literally got a running welcome home from my littler sister. I think it's safe to say she missed me.


*Pictures to come later. Phone is currently dead. Oops.