The Weekend, the Glorious Weekend

Failed(?) Turkevich solution.

This weekend starting, with Friday, was eventful. We started off in the lab in the morning checking up on our Turkevich solutions, and it looked like nothing was going to happen at all, as the solution was still clear. But we still let it thaw out to take samples.

Some cool lab equipment from the tour.

After that, my class visited several laboratories across the scientific department of the school, namely the quantum dot research led by Dr. Rosenthal. We learned quite a bit about the biological and mainstream uses for quantum dots, as well as their structure and how their sizes change the color they emit when they come into contact with UV light. It was quite fascinating.

Once we came back from lunch, something shocking happened. Like, it even shocked Dr. Sutton. Bernice and I's solution had turned dark purple and there was a flaky gold precipitate on top. We are currently recreating the experiment to see exactly what happened but so far I think it looks like that what happened was that bringing the solution down to below freezing caused it to react at room temperature as it thawed out and warm up.

Our Turkevich particles after thawing out

Then later in the day we had a party that was hosted by my house. There was really good mocktails and performances in the talent show. At the end of the talent show my proctor group performed the Cotton Eye Joe and it was absolutely glorious.

Pancakes!!!!

Saturday, we carried out the second test I mentioned earlier and talked about writing scientific reports coming towards the end of class, which is an exciting prospect in itself. Getting to actually write a report about research you did. Then at night I went roller skating for the first time with Joceline and a bunch of other kids from the program. Verdict: I fell three times and should not roller skate. But I had fun.

Today was a pretty chill day. Ms. Hansen came and picked us up to take us to Pancake Pantry, which was phenomenal. Then when we came back to Hank, the program went to the mall. It was pretty typical for a mall and I got earrings for my little sister. Then after dinner we went to different panels for our programs. Mine was about nanomaterials and it was quite fascinating to hear what these people did on the day to day.

I am so sad that this week is the last week of VSA. I met so many cool people and had so much fun!