Week 9: All Alone

During the previous week before Rachel left for her workshop in a different state for a week, I was given a list to accomplish by the end of the week. Last week I discovered while processing the data that one of the runs for the set point Labview VI program was jumping randomly up at the tops of each peak after the last sample point. In order to assess if the problem was programmatic I ran the biotic 24 hour run again on Monday once I came into work. During that day I also finished data processing for one of the runs and even did some more lab cleaning by acid washing some new materials. I even transferred the cultures as needed. When I entered the next morning I discovered that the system had an error overnight. Due to this error the computer did not record data after a certain point so I just re-ran the experiment once again. I was hoping that the error was only a one time thing and had nothing to do with a programing issue.

After re-running the experiment I once again processed the data and discovered that the peaks were happening throughout the entire run way more frequently than before. Rachel believed this to be a mixing problem so I re-ran the pHstat biotic run for the set point Labview program once again. While these runs were occurring I was finishing the data processing for all of the other runs. After they were processed I spent the time to create separate sigma plot graphs for each 24 hour experiment. These included the solenoid activity and pH data. 

At the begining of the week I also assessed pH drift using a second pH meter sitting in a culture flask. We wanted to see how the pH would drift in a matter of hours and not over days. So after I calibrated the pH meter I obtained drift measurements every hour for the first 6 hours and then obtained daily drift measurements. This allowed us to see the amount of drift the pH meter would undergo as it was within the culture for an extended period of time. I then graphed this data to learn the trendline of the pH drift. 

The third run was completed the final day of the week and this run also was showing some problem with jumping pH some supposed problem with the collected data, so we strived to discover the issue next week. Overall the week was very successful, hopefully we can discover the true issue next week.