today a storm hit Pozega ! We're not talking about the one with rain and wind that cancelled the (very) early workout, but the one that is happening in the 21 participants' brains.
If you don't believe
us, just discover the challenges they are dealing with today
– The C3PU has already designed 6 components and
will go on the attack of the control unit to finish with the chip
configuration.
– The Nanocollective team is concentrating its
efforts on finding ways to re-suspend their nanoparticles : changing the pH,
putting some TMA or dissolving in olive oil.
– After exploring statistics and biology, the
Databetes are trying to discover how glycanscan be used to distinguish MODY
diabete patient type.
– The DNATrix is getting closer to the DNA from
cow, chicken and human bones. They will achieve decalcification thanks to EDTA,
even with non-cooperative machines!
– The MADD designed their own spectrophotometer
and are looking forward to measuring absorbance and calculating oxygenation of
their samples.
– The Killers will soon be able to analyse the
superconductivity of MADD team sample. They designed a probe and are exploring
its theoretical functioning.
– Not satisfied with simply constructing their
pendulum the Unpredictables went on to deal with the physical theory to
understand simple pendulum movement.
As the representatives
of the association Paris-Montagne, we are really glad to be here and assist to
the evolution of these projects that are being run with a lot of creativity,
serious and curiosity.
Here is one more proof
that research-based activities are tools of empowerment and that participants
are not too young to be scientists!
We also discussed with
organizers about the aims and implementation strategy of the science summer
school and we are sure that some innovative activities will get off thanks to
this partnership!
Before going back to
France, we would like to thank everyone and express our congratulations to participants,
project leaders and organizers for their deep involvement (even during lunch
and breaks!).
Camille & Cathy,
Paris-Montagne
P.S. Thank you sooooo much for your great lecture tonight Milko Jakšić.
P.S. Thank you sooooo much for your great lecture tonight Milko Jakšić.
Summer School of Science teams
Day fourth
After many hours of constructing pendulums,
we've finally managed to finish our first two samples named Robert and Irena.
These two constructions are marvels of human engineering. They are able to oscillate unpredictably, and that is very cool (check the video). We gave our pendulums ability
to emit light by passing electric current through LED diodes. It is fun to
watch them oscillate in the dark. Our next step is to write a program to
recognize where the lights are and then we can track them in the dark. We
finished out our day with the best lecture so far given by Milko Jakšić from Ruder Boskovic Institute and we can't wait for the
tomorrow's field trip. - the Unpredictables
Today we just
created 6 of the 10 main components of our CPU: The ALU (Arithmetic and Logic
Unit), a comparator, registers, tri-registers, register-array and a shifter. On the following two pictures we can see the VHDL code of the shift component, and the simulation done in order to see if everything works. (It works. :D).
After we ate
ice-cream and rested a little bit. Now we will assemble all of these components
and make them work together. We will also try collaborating with the nano-particle
team by using our CPU to control their electromagnets.
In free time we
will try to make a 3D capacitive sensor to make a 3D interface with an Arduino
and the software "Processing".
Processing website:
http://processing.org/ - the C3PU
Daily news of the X. day – DATABETES
Since
organizers were so kind and merciful to cancel last night’s social activities
and this morning’s workout, we were able to be more productive today. We
learned how 1 can be equal to 2 (or not), how we can connect 9 points with 4
lines and theories of how can an extra person appear in an elevator. So, we had
some fun, but we also learned few extra tricks how to visualize the data and
basics about glycans (so we also involved chemistry into the project). During
the morning we encountered a problem that even Lucija didn’t know how to solve,
but with joint forces we managed to crack it down. High five!
P.S. Instead
of the board, Lucija was pinkish today :)
Dear all,
We hope you're enjoying
your stay at the S3++ as much as we do. The weather finally cooled down so
we're absolutely delirious and not so wet as yesterday. Actually, we're the
hottest group, if you now what we mean... And thanks to the rain this morning
we missed our morning workout. We were so sad all day because of it :( :( :(
Hope we'll have a good time tomorrow at the trip.
Best wishes from the
DNATRiX team!
Our Saturday morning began quite happily with an extra hour of sleep. (:
We started with reading previous studies, followed by discussion about oxygenation and photospectometry. Next we started making our own photospectometer, so we could measure the absorbance and from there find the oxygen amount (for the purposes of the project) and in the way we have learned a bit of electronics. Also we had our daily dose of grinding the samples which passed faster with irish rock in the backrgound. In the afternoon we settled on the confi chairs in library and dealed with theory .
After the informative lecture, we tried to make some firework – just to feel the fun side of chemistry, however the compound were not in the mood to sparkle or mabye we chose not so sparkly compounds. - the Madd
Dear readers,
Today was an amazing day. The second we woke up, we felt that the temperature dropped at least 10 degrees. Yes, it was raining. No one thought we would be enjoying rain this much. Project… Ah, the project… Every day there's much more work but also much more understanding. We now see what amazing things we are building. We even held a little presentation in front of each other – one about paramagnetism and diamagnetism, one about lock-in amplifier and one about a similar project to our in Egypt. The 40-slide lecture just encouraged us to make more effort on our own.
With love,
The Killers
Daily news, from the Nanocollective
As the day dawned thunderingly, we examined our experiments from the previous day. Before our eyes, while the project leader tried (and succeeded) to recover a dropped magnet from a machiavellian sink, our samples held both promise and threat! Karla’s nanoparticles broodingly awaited their citrate; Petra smiled happily at her successful tetramethylammonium hydroxide treatment proved successful! Réka was initially disappointed at the lack of success of olive oil as a surfactant, but a quick methanol treatment proved to help make magnetic vesicles!
In the afternoon, we hunted for Paramecia and made massive plans for next week’s research. We’re going to build a rollercoaster for our nanoparticles and use Paramecia and E.Coli as the main rides!
In the afternoon, we hunted for Paramecia and made massive plans for next week’s research. We’re going to build a rollercoaster for our nanoparticles and use Paramecia and E.Coli as the main rides!
And as the sweet always comes at the end, we bring you a touch of our Social activities.
