Project Updates 

July 30th

The final week is approaching. In the past week many successful data runs were taken and fitted with the new parameters found by Dr. Cederberg. The new data has been helpful in determining the quadrupole interaction constant for RbF. In between data sets, Katie fiddled with the transmission lines to see its affect on the RF. In the midst of writing WinBeam, Mike was sidetracked for a day to write "RFchecker"; a program to help her speed this process up. Evan and Heather worked on fitting data; both 6LiI and RbF. Heather specifically worked on 6LiI while Evan worked with Dr. Cederberg on RbF. By Friday, we were all counting the days to the end of the summer but we have much to do until then. This is the last of the weekly summer updates so thanks for reading. Check back to the 2001 page to see final thoughts from each of the Beam Team members. This page will sporadic have updates pertaining to trips the Beam Team makes to present the work done this summer. Thanks from everyone!

Mike, Evan, Katie and Heather.

July 23rd

The week was a mixture of beam repair and data taking. The source ran out on Tuesday. Since no real new data was taken for RbBr, we rethought our approach to the summer. Dr. Cederberg had made a breakthrough using the MathCad fitting program. He was able to coorrelate some of the fudge factors to real physics. He did this using old RbF data. He wanted to confirm this discovery with new data so we filled the source with RbF instead of RbBr. RbBr will have to be a future project (again). We began to take data on RbF and got immediate results. Even though the fits took over two and a half hours, they were quite good; somewhat better than old fits. Evan also began to write the definitive MolBeam explanation page for the website. Heather continued her fitting of Li6F data that was taken last year. Katie was sick most of the week. This was not the mysterious illness where she was cold all of the time, but an actual illness. She was better by Friday afternoon. Mike began an ambitious project. He started to write the MolBeam control program for Windows. Good Luck. St. Olaf shelters us from the outside world so if you do read this PLEASE email us at molbeam@stolaf.edu. Thanks.

July 16th

The past week has been primarially spent working on physical repair of the Beam, due to an emergency that happened over the weekend. Upon return on Monday morning, the system was at near atmospheric pressures -- causing one of our ion pressure gauges to break and gunking up our detector filament. In the end, we had to replace the filament with one that we made ourselves. (Read: Fun with liquid nitrogen and chemicals!) After Dr. Cederberg replaced the detector filament itself, the team worked on returning the Beam to operating conditions. After taking far too long to return to operating conditions, Dr. Cederberg had us run some leak tests. They were fruitful, and now the system is fully repaired and operating once again! Sorry, but there aren't any new programming tricks for download. Also, if you'd really like to make the team happy, you can drop us a line.

July 8th

It's been an interesting week. We took a day and a half off, starting on Tuesday, for both the Fourth of July, as well as the Annual Summer Science Research Cannon River Canoe Trip! While we were off enjoying ourselves, the Beam was continually running, gathering much needed RbBr data for us to analyze. As for our official work, Evan spent a good deal of time trying to map out where transitions might occur. After realizing that his work was incredibly tedious, he whipped up a Mathcad program to do the work for him! Now we'll be able to easily incorporate future revisions of our predictions into a nice little graph -- letting us see patterns in the data instead of lots of numbers in a spreadsheet! Katie worked on figuring out what RF and DC voltages we should use in our scan runs, in an attempt to maximize the peaks we'd see. (Of course, this assumes that we see a peak there!) Heather worked on making data analysis tools for our new RbBr data. As for Mike, he worked on getting some new programming tricks up his sleeve, in preparation for work on a new Windows version of the data analysis tool nSimp. The result of these programming tricks is the test program ModelessTest02, which you can download here.

July 1st

A weeks worth of KF data was added to the summers and summers worth of KF data done previously. Everbody has a new understanding of how the MolBeam works. The fitting for this data was mainly done by Heather with a little help from Evan. KF is really boring though. We wanted a challenge; we wanted a new molecule. As a group, we decided that RbBr will be the challenging molecule we want to study. Not much is known about RbBr and this summers group wants to change that. Katie filled the source and Evan, Mike, and Heather watched in awe at her skill. She was so skillful at it that she put too much RbBr in and had to remove a bunch before the apparatus could work. After the necessary start up sequences, we started to see a very small beam. Katie and Mike calibrated the machine at this point. After taking two and a half hours to wire a thermocouple lead, Mike fixed the hiccup that the beam had when measuring the RF factor. He fixed it with a 5 minute program change that had nothing to do with the wiring. We started to take data. This is the tough part. It takes 14 hours for one data set. (Katie passed the time by sorting the thousands of screws in the lab. She still isn't finished and for crazy reasons, wants to finish, hence the straightjacket.) Since not much is known, some of the previous data taken may shift the predictions a bit from the actual. Evan took the predictions and charted them in order to better see them for the different J values. Even after countless disappointments from no peaks in the data, most everyone is confident that we will better understand RbBr at the end of summer.

June 25th

A minor miracle happened this last week ... The Beam WORKS! Mike finally finished the pump program. After 3 hard, grueling weeks of programming, Mike can finally move on to the simplex data analysis program. He gets two weeks to finish. He is really happy about that. The first actual day of work occured when the beam fired up on Wed, June 20th. Katie, in between cleaning the desks, tables, floor, pumps, ...etc etc, decided to try to get wet by fixing a leak in Pump A. Dr. Cederberg and Katie soldered for ages on the cooling system of Pump A. It apparently thought Katie may have not been clean enough that day so it gave her a shower ... 5 times. She was mightily appreciative of that. It made her go insane, warranting Dr. Cederberg to trick Katie into putting on a straightjacket, claiming it would keep her warm. (Picture forthcoming) Eventually the pump was fixed. Mike and Evan had fun with liquid nitrogen Thursday morning so Katie could fill the oven source with KF (in a dry box). Evan spent the rest of Thursday morning finding out how to fill the oven with the new source. (He still doesn't know) Heather was the do-all, help-all person this week. She cleaned, programmed, and analyzed data (very little) among other things. No osmosis this time. Over the weekend, 4 runs on different ranges in KF were programmed into the computer. We wanted to view the stark shifts and splits in these certain ranges of KF. Since work actually started, no programs will EVER be put on this website again this year. Besides, after the random number generator game, what else do you need?

June 18th

Mike and Evan were busy this last week. They improved the pump interface program so it now includes temperature and pressure safety checks. These checks will make sure the pumps do not destroy themselves. The pressure safety check needs to be tweaked before actual data can be taken. After this great improvement on the program, Katie and Heather's excitement increased because they can now do actual work. They have all of this useful knowledge in their head and now Mike and Evan have made it much more applicable. Since the safety checks are in place the MolBeam is that much closer to being operational. Heather also continued to examine C++ while Katie is still cold. Eventually we will have a "MolBeam Blanket" just for her. Mike is still tweaking the Pumps program, adding comments for future programmers in the MolBeam group. Evan is helping Mike out as much as he can, adding logical structure here and there, but rarely any code because Mike knows Visual C++ a little bit better. For an example of Mike and Evan's, and now Heather's improved program skills, click here. (Actually just Mike's this time)

June 11th

Another productive week of overloading our brain mush has come and gone. For proof, see grammar and wording of last sentence. Mike has taken a break from learning the core of C++ but now is trying to grasp what little he can of Windows' Visual applications using C++ (It is really hard and we are all impressed with his knowledge). Evan spent splitting his time reading about the apparatus, trying to catch up to the speedy Mike in C++ programming and helping Dr. Olson with the pump control box. The box is now installed and running with a new switch. (Yeah Mike and Evan!) Katie, after getting over a strange illness where she is cold all of the time, continued her quest to be the first person to fully understand Quantum Mechanics. At the rate she is going, she might actually do it. She reads way too much. We still don't think that she has gotten over the illness either. Heather is backing up Mike and Evan by reading C++ notes and telling us what we did wrong. She also did some reading by osmosis. Both Katie and Heather also tried some fitting emphasizing the importance of the nSimp(fit) program that Evan and Mike must translate and reprogram because MathCad takes way forever. (another example of brain mush). For an example of Mike and Evan's, and now Heather's improved program skills, click here

June 4th

After a full week of work, it is a consensus...our brains are full. Katie spent most of her time reading about Quantum Physics and our apparatus. She is probably the most versed on the apparatus of the four of us. Heather and Katie also spent some time with Dr. Cederberg fitting data. This was successful and yet not. The fits took a long time and the fit lines were not yielding accurate answers most of the time. Mike and Evan continued with their venture into the world of C++ programming. By the middle of the week, Heather stopped her physics reading and began to learn C++ as well. Today Dr. Cederberg found that one of the mechanical pumps was not pumping. This is probably due to the water that flooded the apparatus a couple of years ago. This will need to be refurbished before the MolBeam can work. For an example of Mike and Evan's programming skills, click here.

May 29th

Well, here we are. After discussing possible paths to take this summer, we dove right into work. Evan worked on updating the web page while Katie and Heather began to look at the fit programs on Mathcad. Mike spent most of his time studying C programming in order to program the failsafe into Garret's computer interface. Since everyone is new to the project, it might take some time to get accustomed to the research but the general mood is high. Check back for more updates.