Chapter 12 Final Project
In the final project, you will design an experiment that extends and includes one of the experimental techniques that you learned. You will perform the experiment and present the results in a presentation. The process is based on the procedure used by the National Science Foundation (NSF), which awards funding to scientists and researcher in the United States of America.
In the first phase, the opportunity for the final project is announced by the instructor. Clear guidelines are given as to what projects will be supported. Based on this solicitation, a proposal is submitted in the form of a short class presentation. Proposal are either accepted or rejected. The proposals should clearly address the motivation and intellectual merit of the experiment.
The proposal outlines all the experimental parts that are needed as well as the method that will be applied to the experiment. Make sure that you can formulate the problem (research question) clearly and describe the purpose. The method would outline the process that you are going to use. Sometimes, you can write out a hypothesis that can be tested, and sometimes there is a prediction. It is important to define the variables of the experiment and think about which variables are independent, dependent, and fixed? Sometimes, innocuous parameters, such as the temperature may need to be fixed for the experiment.
During the performance of the experiment, details need to be recorded meticulously. In the event that experiment does not work as intended, the details will be important in describing what method was used and what outcomes were obtained. Even experiments that seemingly did not end with concrete results contain important information that should be disseminated. For example, a noise level or experimental bound can be discussed.
Importantly, the results and analysis need to be disseminated. Generally, a summary report is written and an oral presentation given to an audience of interested peers. Communication of scientific results is particularly important in light of funding impasses. For a good presentation, you should tell a story to the audience. The slides in the background merely provide pictorial support, rarely should the slides be used for text. Avoid presenting the story in a historical fashion; i.e. presenting your experiment in the way it happened. Rather think of how you can rearrange the events, so that the story has a logical progression. As a first step, make a draft of the narrative on paper or use a whiteboard. Next, print all the graphs, supporting schematics, sketches, and images that you are going to use, make sure that you are not infringing on any copyrights and include annotations, if you are using other people’s work. Try to use your own work, photos, and diagrams.
The results will be judged and evaluated by your peers.
In the following a few examples are presented. However, projects that include your own interests, ideas, curiosities, or projects that are related to your thesis work are preferred.
The project should be feasible to be completed within the short period of time, so a good plan at hand is essential. At the forefront of an experiment lies a question. Along with this question, there may be a prediction, or different possibilities of outcomes. The possible results should be carefully planned for and thought through. Equipment and materials need to be available.
Part of the excitement is the planning phase, followed by carrying out the experiment. At the end the results, and analysis of the experiment should be shared in a presentation to an audience. The presentation should not tell the temporal flow of your experiment, but rather follow a logical sequence trying to answer the outstanding question from the beginning.
12.1 AFM projects
AFM of interdigitated electrodes and measure capacitances with water, methanol, and acetone
Thickness variations of gold across surface
Gold annealing study (surface of gold before and after annealing)
Steel surface analysis
Nanoparticle analysis
Taxonomy of Mayflies
Detect spoiled milk
Detect alcohols
Surface roughness of nail polishers
Differences in roughness
12.2 Lithography projects
RFID coil
Limitations of Inkjet photolithography
Cr mask samples and recipe changes
Ultimate resolution using different patters
Effects of contact resistance