MeasureNet has added some new features to our LabKonnect™ data storage site and PC software that provide you and your students with even greater flexibility than before.
- Automatic Data Files Graphing
- Online Lab Report Storage/Submission
- Extended Experiments with Remote Monitoring
Automatic Data Files Graphing
With the rollout of the new LabKonnect features, we decided to make it easier to get a quick idea of your data sets. Users can graph any data set uploaded through the MeasureNet Lab PC software right on the LabKonnect™ site.
Online Lab Report Storage/Submission
MeasureNet LabKonnect now allows students to upload their lab reports and store them on the cloud. Instructors can download the lab reports, grade them, and then upload the graded lab report to the student's account for instant feedback with no wasted paper.
(Lab Report View)
(Lab Report Upload)
Extended Experiments with Remote Monitoring
One of MeasureNet's most exciting new features is the ability to conduct extended length experiments and remotely monitor them from the web. If you have an experiment with a slow reaction that needs to be monitored over several days, you can go home and have fun while still collecting your data. MeasureNet will even send you a text message if your experiment goes out of bounds. That way you can come in and fix your setup without losing days worth of valuable data.
You can set up your alert conditions online, and then start the extended experiment with the Lab PC Software. After that, you just let your experiment run until you choose to stop it.
This capability is ideal for research projects that require the monitoring of experiments that run for days or weeks. The William Heineman research group at the University of Cincinnati has been using this feature for a number of their research projects.
(Setting Up Extended Experiment in Lab PC Software)
If you want to check up on your data and see how it's trending, you can log in and graph or download the data that has been collected so far. You can also leave comments on each of the extended experiment files in case you want to do multiple runs.
(View and Graph Extended Experiment Files)
(Mange Extended Experiment Files)
WVXU Podcast link by Ann Thompson: Focus on Technology: Bugs Cleaning Wastewater
Cincinnati scientists are engineering special bugs that will clean wastewater and create energy. Ann Thompson takes you into the lab where this is happening in Focus on Technology.
By Ann Thompson
MeasureNet Research Applications
MeasureNet is renowned for putting cutting-edge technology into the hands of students but MeasureNet may someday be famous for helping scientists find new and innovative ways for dealing with the world’s most difficult problems.
The technology provided by MeasureNet combines a high-resolution measurement workstation with their LabKonnect cloud-based software to create a system that allows researchers to monitor their experiments from anywhere. Researchers access information from the cloud, important in experiments lasting for a week or longer.
LabKonnect will also alert the researcher via text message if something has gone wrong. The researcher specifies a range; the system notifies team members if data goes beyond that range. Scientists no longer spend valuable time and resources babysitting experiments.
This technology was put through its paces recently, when MeasureNet teamed with Dr. Dan Hassett, who creates special bugs that will clean wastewater and create energy. Hassett, molecular genetics professor at the University of Cincinnati, thinks he has found a way to convert sewage into clean water and energy.
Wastewater has stored up energy in the form of pollutants. Hassett is developing bacterial robots, or “bactobots,” that break down these pollutants and release the energy. Sewage treatment plants become biological fuel cells that produce both clean water and energy.
The bactobots are tiny, only about three microns long, but they generate about 400 milivolts with fluctuations as high as 700 milivolts as they clean the water. Hassett increases the amount of power a bactobot can generate through a series of genetic mutations. Measuring the output of these miniscule bacteria is a big job, and that’s where MeasureNet steps in.
MeasureNet helped Dr. Hassett monitor the voltage and current output of biological fuel cells. Typically, the ouput voltage fluctuates and over the course of four days. Thanks to the sensitive measuring equipment and cloud capabilities provided by MeasureNet technology, Hassett found the existence of a second particular bacterium actually increased output over those four days.
While the output from a single bactobot is small, the impact of these biological fuel cells could break one of humanity’s most vexing vicious cycles. Wastewater treatment plants are the single largest consumer of energy, and the second largest user of water is energy production. Introducing a bacteria that would simultaneously clean water and produce energy would be monumental.
MeasureNet is at the forefront of hands-on laboratory technology, both in the classroom and in the research lab. Like technology itself, MeasureNet continuously develops new ways to enhance the lives and learning of students, scientists and everyday people.
Science and technology bond together like carbon and hydrogen. One field benefits the other- scientific discoveries advance technological applications which then return more sophisticated research tools to the scientific community. Many of your chemistry students will graduate into a world that integrates science and technology into a singular platform that utilizes electronic data collection technology, a safer and more efficient mode of gathering and managing information. Give your freshman chemistry students the technological edge they need to facilitate learning while simultaneously freeing yourself from expensive hardware upgrades, viruses and archaic forms of monitoring student progress in your freshman chemistry lab.
When you switch to electronic data collection technology, you’ll immediately notice how much more available space you have in your general chemistry lab. In the typical, old-fashioned general chemistry lab, each student shared bench space with their own large, cumbersome PC. These PCs are at increased risk for virus infection, costly hardware and software upgrades and usually need to be replaced every three to four years. The MeasureNet MCAN, or Multifunctional Chemical Analysis Network, replaces up to 15 individual PCs with a single PC that is used by the instructor to monitor student activity and manage their data files, locally or on the cloud.
Student workstations integrate with a wide variety of probes and other chemistry laboratory apparatus that enable your chemistry lab students to accurately perform hands-on experiments in general chemistry, environmental chemistry, STEM and biochemistry labs. These hands-on lab exercises are critical for the students’ development of basic chemistry concepts.
Chances are good that students in your general chemistry lab are already technologically advanced and have used electronic data collection technology in high school. They are also quite accustomed to cloud computing from using products like Google Docs and Dropbox, where both software and files are saved online rather than on a personal computer. MeasureNet’s MCAN technology merges electronic data collection and cloud computing capabilities together. MCAN allows your student to measure and collect high resolution data in the lab and store it on the cloud for later analysis and lab report generation. Students, especially science students, will be excited to use the advanced technology MeasureNet MCAN offers. MeasureNet MCAN technology takes your students to the next level, giving your students the edge they need when whether they go on to industry or pursue advanced degrees in science.
Cloud computing also helps you monitor your chemistry lab students from the instructors PC to be sure they are conducting the experiment, collecting data and analyzing information properly. You can also monitor live data collection experiments remotely. Using the internet you can connect to MeasureNet MCAN workstations from outside the chemistry lab using a computer, tablet or smart phone.
MCAN electronic data collection technology can easily be in integrated into your current chemistry lab curriculum and can be adapted to fit a variety of teaching styles.
- POGIL
- STEM
- Self Directed
- Verification-style
- Inquiry-based Chemistry Labs
- Hands-on learning
You can easily integrate MeasureNet based experiments into your current lab curriculum. Here is a small sample of experiments that can be conducted with the MCAN technology.
- Gas Laws
- Colligative Properties
- Enthalpy of Reaction — Hess's Law
- Determination of the Heat of Neutralization of a Variety of Strong Acids and Bases
- Chemical Kinetics
- Determination of a Reaction Equalibrium Constant Using Absorption Spectroscopy
- pH and Buffer Solutions
- pH titrations and end-point determination using Drop Counter
- Identifying a Weak Unknown Acid
- Determination of the Molecular Weight of a Volatile Liquid Using the Ideal Gas Law
- Vapor Pressure and Heat of Vaporization
Using MeasureNet’s MCAN technology in your lab means you’ll spend less time working as a computer repair technician and more time teaching chemistry. The MeasureNet MCAN frees you from problems usually associated with PC-based systems. Virus removal and reimaging computers will be a thing of the past.
Get back to doing what you love – teaching chemistry to hungry minds – by replacing your old, worn out computers with intuitive space saving MCAN electronic data collection technology. Excite students in your general chemistry labs by using the same technically advanced instrumentation used by university research labs and real-world industry chemistry labs. Make your chemistry lab program exciting and technologically relevant to students by using electronic data collection technology in your labs.
Have you ever wanted to look in from your office or remote location to check on the progress of your lab students or an experiment you are running? Or what about sharing experiment data from this morning’s lab with rural student miles away with no lab access? With MeasureNet’s new Remote Monitor software, you can— whether you’re down the hall or across the country.
Designed with STEM partnerships and outreach activities in mind, Remote Monitor gives institutions without MeasureNet a chance to participate through the graphical viewing of acquired data files and the analysis of collected data via most any statistical or spreadsheet software. It also allows lab directors, instructors, and teaching assistants to monitor their MeasureNet networks from different physical locations.
Any station on any network can be monitored live or its saved files can be downloaded to any PC running Remote Monitor. Network chat boxes make it easy for teaching assistants to communicate with each other or with the lab manager. Remote Monitor also enables MeasureNet’s Cincinnati offices to quickly troubleshoot a network anywhere in the world as long as it is connected to the Internet. With appropriate IDs and passwords, a collaborating institution can have access to partner real-time lab experiments or saved data for research or outreach activities. Remote Monitor installs on any Windows-based PC connected to the Internet and doesn't require additional software or MeasureNet hardware.
MeasureNet Technology Ltd. manufactures patented, network-based data acquisition interfaces for science teaching laboratories. It is a spin-off of the University of Cincinnati's Department of Chemistry and is headquartered in Cincinnati, Ohio. Measurenet's award-winning, PC-reducing design helps reduce laboratory maintenance and operational costs while giving students access to high quality shared UV-vis spectroscopy, gas chromatograph connectivity, and an array of innovative probeware. Its acclaimed intuitive design provides improved transparency to enable better science-focused, not technology-focused, learning. Winner of the Ohio Governor's Award For Excellence in Energy Efficiency, MeasureNet networks are found in universities, community colleges, high schools, and vocational training centers across the United States and around the world.
MeasureNet is pleased to announce that its blog will feature caricatures of notable chemists drawn by Professor William Jensen of the University of Cincinnati. The series will include a brief biographical summary of each individual authored by Jensen. The drawings will appear regularly on MeasureNet's its blog beginning in September, 2011.
I'm thrilled to have these Jensen works associated with MeasureNet. They'll add a very nice visual element to our media products. At the same time, they have a high degree of relevance to chemical education. Bill's drawings fit with our efforts to make the study of chemistry more interesting and germane to students of all academic backgrounds.
William B. Jensen, Ph.D. holds the Oesper Chair in the History of Chemistry and Chemical Education at the University of Cincinnati. He is also curator of the Oesper Collection of Rare Books and Portraits in the History of Chemistry and of the department of chemistry's apparatus museum. In the area of the history of chemistry, Dr. Jensen's interests center on the development of late 19th and early 20th century physical chemistry and inorganic chemistry, with special emphasis on the origins of chemical thermodynamics and solid-state inorganic chemistry. He also has made a detailed study of the origins and development of the 19th century scientific community in Cincinnati. Photos of his early 20th-century chemistry laboratory assembled at the University of Cincinnati have been used in MeasureNet brochures and exhibit displays.
A Journal of Chemical Education article titled Managing Laboratory Data Using Cloud Computing as an Organizational Tool by Jacqueline Bennett and Harry E. Pence (J. Chem. Educ. June 2011:Vol. 88 no. 8) brings to light the the key role cloud computing will play in laboratory instruction.
The authors summarized the benefits of the cloud from a research and educational perspective nicely... "Cloud computing, where both software and computer files reside online, offers a solution to this data-management problem and allows researchers to coordinate their efforts just as easily whether they are working in the same laboratory or laboratories halfway around the world ".
MeasureNet Technology has been supplying chemistry lab instructors with cloud based tools for data-management, data security and Collaborative/Cooperative Learning solutions for many years. MeasureNet's Laboratory Electronic Measurement and Data Collection Technology is used in university chemistry labs by students to measure and collect data sets in the lab, store and share on the cloud and analyze these data sets from anywhere via the cloud. MeasureNet's patented unique Network design takes cloud computing to the next level by connecting students to the lab TA or instructor while they are are conducting the experiments. Using MeasureNet's real-time monitoring capablities, TA's in the lab can monitor student experiments to make sure they are conducting the experiments properly. Instructors or collaborators can also monitor the live data collection with their computers from any remote location via the internet.