Thursday

Today's the last day of work. Well tomorrow is but that doesn't really count since it's presentation day. I haven't updated my blog in days because Katie & I have been working on our presentation. It's all finished all we have to do is practice it and go over a couple of things.

"52 cards and I can't catch a single one..."

Today Katie and I went to the pc lab to work on our presentations. Also, we haven't gotten recorded yet and Beth left early. Sean and Jake came with us to the printer to record us. It was longer then I thought but I'm sure Beth can cut out some stuff. We thought there would be a lecture but there wasn't. No more free pizza.

Tuesday

Dr. Swartzlander was here today. Well actually it's his last day here because he is going to Arizona for a month and won't be there for our presentations. Katie, Ryan and I will be doing a one big presentation. We talked to Dr. S about everything we will be working on for the past 2 weeks of work. He said we won't be able to finish our project which was making a lens with the same characteristics of a polarizer. He told us we still needed to print 4 different gray scales on the PVA and the undergraduates will finish the project.

Monday

We tried the printer again with a new piece of PVA. It still won't stick. We don't know why it is not working. It might be too stiff.

Friday

Went over to the circular building next to crossroads for the poster presentations. We ate breakfast and walked around to see some of the posters. All of the students were dressed formal. Later, all of the interns got together and took a break at Javas.

Thursday

Finally got the amount of volts on the printer. We started off printing 10 volts on to the PVA. Today when we went back to the printer, we couldn't get the PVA to stay for some reason. We tried for an hour and a half but failed to get it to stick.

"I know you wanna hold my hand,but this isn't the right time!"

Today during our staff meeting Roger Easton made a presentation about some of the things he has done and will be doing at his trip to Egypt next month. It took about half an hour and then he showed us a clip of National Treasure 2 when they talk about the process they used from Easton's ideas. When the presentation was over, I went back to the lab. Katie and I took the cartridge we used to print on yesterday and went over to the printer. It took an hour literally for the PVA to stay on the printer. It wouldn't stick even when the vacuum was on. Finally, we got it to stay. By reading the manual, we found out how to control the volume. It kept on asking us for a pan that we didn't have so we switched to the spacing. It looked better then before so we printed a couple of corners. There was a picnic for the School of Science that we attended for lunch. After lunch we went back to the printer. Apparently, we had to find a way to change the voltage. It took us about two hours and some printing until we called Dr. Swartzlander to help us out. He found out how to change the voltage and we took over from there.

Tuesday

In the morning, Katie and I made thicker ink and filled the new cartridge. After that we headed to the printer. For the first time, we accomplished printing without any help from the undergraduate. It took us 20 minutes to get the PVA to stay on the printer. We kept raising the temperature and it still wouldn't stick. Eventually, I figured out why it wouldn't stay. The vacuum was off. After we turned it on it stuck to the printer immediately. We printed 4 squares in each corner. They all ranged in different layers from 1 to 4. After lunch we showed it to Dr. Swartzlander. Apparently, the ink was too dark. We had to make one tenth of the dye with black rest with water. After we filled the new ink in the cartridge, we went back to the printer. We dyed the new ink under the squares we did earlier arranging the same way from 1 to 4. We went back to the lab and showed Dr. Swartzlander. The ink was not sticking on the PVA correctly. After we rinsed it under the water and then put it under a polarizer, it was working properly. We have been trying to get it to print like this in weeks. The only problem is the amount of ink that is being printed on the PVA. Tomorrow, we need to find a way to change the amount it is printing by reading the printers manual.

Monday!

Today we went out to lunch to Pellegrinos. Their subs were really good. After that we went on our second field trip to the University of Rochester to visit their laser lab. The tour was pretty cool but the presentation was terrible. The tour guide really didn't know what he was talking about. Whenever people asked questions, he just replied with "I don't know". We celebrated Emma's birthday with cookie cake that she brought in when we got back to RIT. After that, I went down to my lab. We got new PVA that actually works! Very excited because I finally know how to use the printer. I brought my lab equipment from the optics lab i was working in downstairs to our lab. Tomorrow I will try to set it up. We had to make black dye for the cartridge. We went down to get the cartridge from where the printer is located. When we came back, we mixed the black dye with water and then filled it in the cartridge. I cut a part of the PVA and brought it with us as well as the cartridge. Katie and I were disappointed with our results. The dye was too thin and kept leaking out of the cartridge. We couldn't print the PVA today but tomorrow we will after we make the dye thicker so it doesn't leak.