The Heather Hrabovsky Memorial Laboratory

This is a photograph of my wife, Heather, and I taken in July of 2000. Heather died of breast cancer on 27 November of 2000.

Heather was a remarkable woman. Not only was she my wife, but my partner in most things; MAST was no exception. She was the Treasurer for MAST and was worried that her passing would cause irrepairable harm to MAST. She arranged to leave me some money, much of which I have used to support MAST beyond either of our dreams. I am pleased to announce that we now have sufficient resources to open our lab to all MAST members.

We have a fully instrumented electronics lab:

  1. Our pride and joy in this context is an HP 54100A Digitizing Oscilloscope. This is capable of resolving time down to 10 femtoseconds (!)
  2. We have two function generators and an RF/IF Signal Generator.
  3. We have a lab DMM and two portable DMMs.
  4. We have a Tektronix 465 350 MHz Oscilloscope.
  5. We have two regulated power supplies.
  6. We have a good breadboard.
  7. We have plenty of component parts.

We have a fully capable general purpose lab, here it is set up for microscopic observing.

  1. Regulated incubator with thermometer, good to 45 C.
  2. Autoclave.
  3. 20 Pyrex Petrie Dishes.
  4. More Test and Culture Tubes than I will ever need in my life.
  5. 2 Nichrome Innoculating Loops.
  6. Nutrient Broth growth medium.
  7. Nutrient Agar growth medium.
  8. Disinfectant.
  9. Microbiological Staining Kit.
  10. AO 50, Compound Microscope with precision controls for positionioning slides, course and fine optical focus, 10X binocular, 10X-40X-100X oculars, Abbe condensor with iris, and a built in lamp.
  11. Kodak MDS 100 Digital Video Camera (CCD) with C-Ring Adapter and USB adapter, along with the Microscope Documentation Software. Here is an example of a Hydra under the oil immersion lense. This is capable not only of good stills (such as this one), but full digital video too.

We are developing a very nice general analytical chemistry lab:

  1. An HP 8450A UV/Vis Spectrophotometer. This is a very nice analytical instrument. Here is a sample absorption spectra taken with it, we are very pleased with it. In the future we hope to be able to analyze ther results of this on the computer (see the photograph of the lab bench above).
  2. We have Capco Model 700 Gas Chromatograph.
  3. We have a Perkin-Elmer Visible Spectrophotometer.
  4. We have a LabPro ADC with numerous devices including a Colorimeter, pH probes, temperature probes, etc.
  5. We have LOTS of glassware.
  6. We are acquiring standard reagents.

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