• Question: What new skills have you learned over the last year?

    Asked by anon-227008 to William, Thibaut "Tibo", Harry, Georgia, Emily, Aimee on 12 Nov 2019.
    • Photo: Georgia Orton

      Georgia Orton answered on 12 Nov 2019: last edited 12 Nov 2019 8:42 am

      In the last couple of weeks I have been learning how to run SCXRD (Single Crystal X-ray Diffraction). This technique allows me to take a crystal of something I have made and shine x-rays at it to help work out which atoms (tiny particles) are connected together to make the chemical. I’m finding it really exciting but I need to keep asking my team for lots of help! Thankfully we all have different skills so we can help each other a lot.

    • Photo: Aimee Egglestone

      Aimee Egglestone answered on 12 Nov 2019:

      Last week I “Graduated” with a qualification in a thing called “Six Sigma” which is a problem solving method. It teaches you to look at problems as continuous development rather than a one off quick-fix, within that was a tool called “Design of experiment” which allows me to complete a couple of experiments with minor differences each time, I can then pop the results into a piece of software and it will tell me which factors are causing a problem, and if any of those have bigger effects when mixed. eg. I vary the time, temperature, mass of reactant A and mass of reactant B; and from that I find out that the time I leave it for doesn’t really matter, unless I’ve only added a small amount of reactant B and that Reactant A matters more than reactant B.

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