Well, I would like to start my presentation with a quote
from Carl Sagan, which is, "Science
is a way of thinking much more that it
is a body of knowledge."
And I use this quote because I think it really captures
the essence of the course that I am proposing
to offer to all of you, if you care to sign up for it,
during the winter session.
And I proposed this as an idea, the course
is entitled Instrumentation for Research.
It's a Biomaterials/Materials Project Laboratory.
And this quote captures this course in the following way.
I think as a college student, you attend a lot of lectures
and you get a lot of input, a lot
of information handed to you, a lot of knowledge
that you gain from going to classes.
And you walk around campus with all this knowledge
and wonder, what can I do with it?
And that's what this course is all about.
It's about not just having a body of knowledge,
but beginning to think like a scientist,
think like an engineer.
And you can do that by working in the laboratory.
So this is a course that is aimed at concentrators
in science and engineering, but is also open to concentrators
outside of that.
And I think it's something that will develop as I find out
who is interested.
My name is Tayhas Palmore.
I'm a Professor of Engineering and Chemistry.
And I'll be teaching this course, where you're
going to get hands-on experience in working
with very sophisticated equipment that's
used in doing scientific and engineering research.
So the key objectives of this course
is really to help you learn the scientific method,
that is, taking some of the knowledge you have
and putting it in action.
And it is really having ideas or aims
in the interest that you have and formulating a hypothesis
to test.
You observe something, you want to understand
why that's occurring, you formulate a hypothesis,
you develop a set of experiments,
and you set out to do those experiments.
And in that process, what you're doing
is learning really the kinds of equipment
and experimental techniques that are
used in a research laboratory.
So you learn the scientific method while
at the same time gaining some lab experience.
And this is helpful for those of you
who are interested in, say, joining a research
group during the summer and having a UTRA
Fellowship to pay for that.
Or perhaps you want to apply for an internship
during the summer at some company.
And by having this background experience from the winter
session, that just gives your application
that much more strength.
Hopefully by the end of the course,
you will have found your passion, what
it is that you are interested in and being able to pursue that
and then helping you to find ways in which you can continue
to pursue that, either within a faculty lab
or outside during the summer at companies.
So to just give you an example of the kinds of projects.
So this is a Biomaterials and Materials Project Laboratory.
Here's an example of a Materials Project.
Let's say you're a materials engineering concentrator.
And you're a sophomore.
And you're interested in battery technology.
In fact, you're just curious about it.
You want to know, how are batteries made?
How do they work?
And how does somebody decide what goes into a battery?
So the project you might do would
be to develop a method for synthesizing
a material for a battery.
And I, of course, would help you with some ideas.
But you may come in with your own ideas.
We would synthesize that material.
And in the process, learn how to characterize it.
And this is where the very high-end sophisticated
equipment comes in, where you get trained to use that.
Once you know that you actually have
the material that you aim to make, then you like to test it.
Is it as good as something out there in a commercial battery?
So we would teach you how to make or assemble a battery.
And here's an example of a coin cell battery
that's typically done with doing samples of different materials
for battery technology.
And then once you've made it, then you test it.
And if you're lucky, of course then or if you're very smart,
then you wind up with a battery at the end or set of batteries
at the end of the course, where you can use them
in your bike light.
And they're just as good as what you buy off
the shelf at RadioShack.
Alternatively, though, you may not be so smart
or it may not work out so well.
And this gives you an opportunity
to learn that iterative process in research,
which is why does it not work?
What can I do to change how this material this is
so that it will perform better?
And develop that hypotheses, new design of experiments,
and test it again.
So that's an example of the Materials Project.
Of course, this is a course that also
should appeal to students who are interested in biology
or biomedical engineering.
And we would have a similar kind of Biomaterials Project
that you could work.
The way this course will work, it's got limited enrollment
because it's a lab course.
I can't have too many of you in there.
Registration I think will be talked about in a minute
at Courses@Brown.
That starts next week beginning at 9:00 AM.
And we'll have a late registration in the event
that the course doesn't fill up and would
give a chance for other people who might be still thinking
about it.
The course dates are January 3rd through 23rd.
We will also have a project meeting early in December.
Once I have a sense of who all is signed up,
I want to meet with each one of you
to go over your interests and the kinds of projects
you might want to work on so that we can prepare
for the January winter session.