Week 8: Summer Placement

Day 1

The tube delays on the Piccadilly line made me half an hour late for the group meeting! :( I walked in and apologised and then listened to some great physics experiment collaboration. It seems like every week there is a new experiment going on - too cool! I then spoke to my supervisor about my CAD drawings for the housing of the popomatic and he said that he wanted to see my CAD drawings before I sent them to Atlas Plastics, a leading plastic fabricator, to get a quote. I had modelled the housing for the popomatic a month ago but realised that I did this on Windows and so wasn't compatible with the mac that I was now using. Thus, I had to recreate the CAD drawings which didn't take too long since it was a similar process to last time. By 3pm I was done with the CAD drawings and sent screenshots to my supervisor so that he could check that they were okay. After this I took a little food break and encountered my supervisor who had great news! Some of my orders had finally arrived - I was so excited - felt like Christmas came early. It was the first time I had ever received a package that was full of cool, shiny equipment.

After that, I took the equipment to the lab and unpackaged the stuff. One of the items that arrived were the Aluminium profiles/optical construction rails which needed to be cut. I asked the PhD student who was working in the same lab as me and he directed me to the Physics Department's Workshop. Since I only wanted the Aluminium profiles cut in half, the man in the workshop agreed to get the job done by tomorrow morning. So the PhD student helped me carry the rails to the workshop and I gave my email address to the workshop man and hopefully I'll have nicely cut Aluminium profiles by tomorrow morning! :)

Aluminium profile

                 

                 

Pink packaging!

T-nuts

Handles

Day 2

As soon as I arrived at university I went over to the workshop, collected the freshly cut aluminium rails and put them in the lab. I quickly realised that I needed end caps to protect anyone using the popomatic from getting hurt from the sharp edges of the rail so I emailed my supervisor with the appropriate order number and he ordered them for me.

I received an email from Atlas Plastics, the company from which I was going to order the plastic casing for the popomatic, regarding the fact that he could not open the CAD drawings because I was using AutoCAD 2015 and his version was 2000. So I re-saved my drawings in the version 2000 and re-sent them to him. He could then open them :) 

I went back into the lab after lunch and found that I could not attach the handles to the aluminium rail because the M6 (metric, 6 mm diameter) screws did notify through the holes in the handles. I went upstairs to the offices on level 7 and asked a PhD student about what I should do. She and another PhD student recommend that I drill larger holes - so the PhD student who was qualified to use the large electric drill drilled them for me. After this we went up to level 8 where the researchers I was working with treated me to some cake for passing my second year exams after a tough year going through an illness. It was lovely to see all the researchers in one place and we had some great chats and of course delicious cake! They were so friendly and I will definitely miss them when my placement comes to an end - thank you very much to all those in the Plasma Physics Group at Imperial College, you are all amazing!

After some quality cake I went down to the lab to find that the M6 screws couldn't fit in the handle despite the holes where the correct size - this time the head of the screw would get caught in the top half of the handle and so didn't fit. I went back up to the PhD office and again I asked a PhD student about what I should do. We went down to the lab and she found a solution! She suggested that I used M4 screws with an M4 --> M6 adapter so that the M6 part could be attached to the t-nut and in turn fit in the aluminium rail - yes! It was sorted and so I called it a day.

The experiment the PhD student in my lab was doing - creating a donut shaped light beam with a laser and an axicon - SUPER COOL!

Handles with the newly drilled holes

Day 3

When I arrived in the office this morning I received an email from Atlas Plastics and he said that he could't get the dimensions of my CAD drawing so I sent him hand drawings of all the dimensions, but luckily I had drawn these a month ago so I used these instead of making new drawings.

I then started working on the solution the PhD student helped me find for the handles and attached the adapters to the screws and it fit! I tried attaching a handle to the aluminium rail and it fit nicely! :) But there was a problem, I ordered 8 handles and I only received 7 so I emailed my supervisor about it. 

At noon I met with Dr. Foster, the Outreach Officer of the Physics Department at Imperial College for a briefing about a demo that I shall be doing at the Imperial Open Day on Saturday (check out my post about the Open Day here) - it's a demo where the A level visitors can have a go at measuring the speed of light with cheese, a microwave, a ruler and calculator! You can do it at home too! Check out the blog for more details and a scientific explanation.

More orders arrived and it really felt like Christmas came early! I was so excited to open the boxes and start building! By the end of the day I had a few cage mounts built!

I then had a short meeting with my supervisor about my CAD drawings and he wanted me to modify them slightly - this included making holes in the back of the plastic casing where screws will be used to attach the casing to the aluminium rail and he also wanted me to round the ends of the slot in the casing. I went down to the lab to measure the distance that the holes in the back of the casing needed to be and got these values:

Handles with the screws

Testing out the handle 

Orders came!

Microscopes!

Lab Snacks! Mmmmm...

Tasty!

Lenses!

Cage mounts taking shape!

Day 4

This morning was different to all the other mornings I started it at my old school where I was there to pick up a plasma ball for the Great People Day event I was going to participate in tomorrow morning. Check this out for more info about the event. It was lovely to meet the technicians and teachers that I worked with when I did the science club at the school, these teachers were also my teachers when I was at the school. I missed them and they missed me too - I'll be at the school soon to do a talk about revision techniques and how to ace A levels at the start of October for my old physics teacher's class. I'm so excited to go back and inspire the younger generation (hopefully!). 

After this, I went to university and finished building all the cage mounts. I soon found out that the adapter rings I needed to attach the microscope to the cage mount were too small. The PhD student I shared the lab with helped me find the right ones on Thorlabs. I sent this to my supervisor for him to order the part.

I received an email from Atlas Plastics with a quote on the pricing for the casing with the new modifications which was accepted by my supervisor and he sent Atlas Plastics an official order form from Imperial College. I then got to work on putting the lenses into their mounts which was complete by the end of the day.

Cage mounts complete!

High speed camera the PhD student in the lab was using - EXTRA COOL! He imaged microscopic particles moving around before they were optically trapped!!

Lens mounts

Attaching the lenses

Cage mounts with lenses

Day 5

After participating in the Great People Day at the Chalfonts Community College in the morning (read more about it here) I got back to university. I arrived at my desk in the PhD office and I saw a huge cardboard box - it was my orders! I took them down to the lab and opened it. It was full of all the electronics relating to the popomatic.

I also received the end caps for the Aluminium rails and attached them using a mallet (which was great fun!). Since I came in late because of the event this morning it was already 5 pm and the researchers and I went to the pub to watch the rugby match! Again, it was lovely to spend time with the researchers in a social setting which always helps break the stereotype that scientists just have their heads stuck in books and do calculations all day without interacting with people.