Week 7: Houston, We Have a Problem

Even if you know close to nothing about my project, knowing that I’m using spectrometry (rather than the more conventional electrode technique) for characterizing ORP is enough to realize that a broken spectrometer poses a large problem. Fortunately we have other labs next door whose equipment I can borrow. However, that has been accompanied by a headache of new calibrations and blanks that I’ve had to run, ensuring that the data from our spectrometer will line up with theirs.

Despite the spectrometer issues, this week had a number of highlights. Between bouts of fruitless maintenance attempts, I had a lot of time to reorganize my data spreadsheets, upload new data, and ensure that my graphs and file names are uniform. On Wednesday, we went on a field trip to Astoria, on the Columbia River estuary. We got to tour the museum and then rode aboard CMOP’s boat, Forerunner, to tour the estuary and observe equipment maintenance on one of many buoys in the area. Some of the interns got to see stations where specific data they’re working with is coming from. It was a fun outing!

Just a few weeks are left this summer before my internship is over! I’ll definitely be among those who are experimenting until the very end. I still have a lot of data collection ahead of me – it will be a busy next couple weeks.