4/16/2024

We just wrapped up my final board retreat. It felt very productive and I feel very confident about the future of the board and the lab.

2/27/2024

The experiment was highly unsuccessful. Only 3 subjects actually showed up so we were not able to gather any conclusive results. Both of our experiments so far have failed because of subjects not showing up, so moving forward we are going to come up with a new source of subjects that are hopefully more reliable.

2/15/2024

The experiment we are conducting on caffeine effects is finalized. We have 12 subjects, half will receive caffeine and half will receive a control drink with no caffeine. This experiment will take place on February 27. We will measure heart rate and oxygen rates with sensors, and will measure sudoku speed and reaction time through online websites.

2/1/2024

I am creating a new experiment for Kinesiology with Zac, Rhone, and Jake. We are going to be examining the effect of caffeine on performance through a series of tests. This experiment is still in its early stages but I will continue updating my journal is it progresses.

12/7/2023

The Kinesiology lab is going to end up having to re-run the stretching experiment. The data was inconclusive and contained enough potential for error that I feel that it is worth entirely scrapping it and starting over. I am in the prep stages of designing this next experiment. The Hydroponics poster is finished and poster night is next week. I am working on creating guiding instructions for creating Vitaes and journals.

11/14/2023

I ran the Kinesiology stretching experiment today. Only ten of the expected 25 subjects showed up so our results were limited. I am going to be reviewing the results that we do have and decide how to proceed. The data that we were able to collect is not thorough enough to derive any serious conclusions. The experiment went fine. There is clear room for growth in future experimentation, but it also had some successes.

10/16/2023

I had to push the Kinesiology experiment by a bit to November 7. I will finish preparing in advance of this date.

10/11/2023

I am running the Stretching Type experiment for the Kinesiology lab on Tuesday, October 17th. I have created a document in the Kinesiology Google Drive to design the stretching routines that each of the groups will follow.

9/27/2023

I have finished the Hydroponics Handbook! I am doing final revisions and edits but it is at a comfortably finalized place. I hope that this will be a working document that will constantly be evolving, but this is a good foundation. I will now direct my focus towards getting the Kinesiology experiment off the ground.

9/7/2023

I have gathered 25 volunteers for my first Kinesiology experiment. I created the data table and the only remaining step is to finalize times where I can conduct this experiment. I hope to begin experimentation within the next week or so.

8/31/2023

I am beginning to plan my first experiment for the Kinesiology Lab. I will be measuring speed and jumping ability before and after each of the types of stretching was performed. The experimental design for this project can be found in the Kinesiology Experimental Design document. I sent out an email to the Wildwood student body asking for subjects willing to participate.

8/30/2023

I am thrilled to announce the founding of the WISRD Kinesiology Lab! I will be the PI for this lab and will focus on studying human athletic performance and optimization. The website for this lab has been created and can be found here and the lab proposal can be found here.

I have been continuing to trudge through the Hydroponics Handbook, but am nearly finished. We have rebuilt and cleaned the Hydroponics lab and should be able to begin experimentation soon.

I am doing a complete overhaul of the website for myself, Hydroponics, and Aquatic Life, and am creating the website for Kinesiology.

8/29/2023

I have been working on a Sports Science Lab Proposal. I have comprehensively researched the different factors that go into Sports Science and the only remaining part of the proposal I have to complete is individual experimental design. I will allow some of the freshmen who are interested in joining this lab to complete part of this proposal in order to acclimate them to the experimental design process. Hopefully, I can launch this lab in the near future and return to more hands-on work with both this new lab and hydroponics.

The first WISRD board meeting of the year was today which was also my first meeting as acting Project Manager. I am excited to act in this role this year!

8/24/2023

Today is the first day of WISRD of the new school year. I am trying to recruit new members into Hydroponics and Aquatic Life based on the individual student’s interests. I need to evaluate the current state of both of these labs in order to determine how to most effectively start the year on the right foot. I am trying to start a new kinesiology/physiology lab so my primary focus for today is to begin an experiment pitch for that potential lab and to continue working on the handbook for hydroponics.

5/16/2023

The WISRD website has been down for months and so I was unable to update my journal. The hydroponics lab finished the construction of the surrounding bio chamber and ran two trials with the Paul Robeson Tomatoes. None of these trials were especially conclusive, with the first one focusing on ensuring that these tomatoes can be grown in a hydroponics system and the second trial beginning salinity testing. In this second trial, we miscalculated the salinity in one of the tubes and ended up killing the tomatoes. We used a 3% salinity solution which is only slightly less salinated than the ocean (3.3%). This is a great learning opportunity and provides us with a clear ceiling for experimental salinity so we can begin narrowing down on the correct salinity limit. In the Aquatic Life Lab, we got many new species and have been observing their behaviors and testing for harmful substances in the water in order to better support a mostly self-sustaining tank. Both the Aquatic Life and the Hydroponics Labs created posters for the Fall and Spring Poster sessions. Those posters are linked above on this website. I also published an article for the Inquirer which can also be found above. In exciting news, I was recently elected to be the Board Program Director for the upcoming 2023 - 2024 year. This is an exciting new opportunity for me to demonstrate leadership and get more closely involved in advancing the institute. I have been working on creating a Hydroponics Master Handbook that can be updated and referred to by future generations to summarize our work and make it easier to replicate in the future.

11/17/2022

The surrounding case for the Hydroponics lab has begun being constructed around the lab space. We hope to begin experimentation shortly. 

11/6/2022

I posted a tweet on the WISRD Twitter with updates on the Hydroponics Lab. This tweet can be found here.

10/20/2022

I have been working on deconstructing the hydroponics lab for cleaning in order to prep it for beginning to run it again. We hope to have it fully functioning by Wednesday, October 26th. I have also been working on getting more fish for the Aquatic Life Lab. I am trying to get vibrant and colorful fish that will have interesting interactions with each other and bring attention to the lab. 

10/3/2022

I posted a tweet on the WISRD Twitter with updates on the Aquatic Life Lab. This tweet can be found here.

9/19/2022

The freshwater tank arrived and Megan and I built it. We filled it with substrate and are currently trying to figure out what plants and animals will be put into it. The tank should be up and running shortly!

8/30/2022

I posted a tweet on the WISRD's Twitter announcing the creation of the Aquatic Life Lab. This tweet can be found here. I also created the Aquatic Life Webpage and the Aquatic Life Google Drive Folder. 

8/29/2022

I am back in the swing of things after the break. The Hydroponics group lost a few of its members. I sent out an email attempting to recruit more people to join. Ridley and I are building a walled enclosure to go around the lab area in order to better control temperature and light exposure. We will also add a whiteboard to the side of the wall which will help in-group communication. Once the enclosure is finished we will continue with Hydroponics experimentation. I also have created and am now the PI of the Aquatic Life Lab. I will be filling and observing a freshwater fish tank. I am PI with Esmé who will be in charge of the saltwater tank. I am creating a materials list to determine what needs to be done and bought for this tank to function. 

5/8/2022

I posted a tweet on WISRD’s Twitter announcing our progress in the lab which can be seen here. 

4/25/2022

We have run through two full cycles of the lab since my last entry. We cleaned and restarted the first cycle and then began a second cycle with the proper salt measurements. It turned out that the salt content was not high enough, and all the plants survived, however, we did learn that if the nutrients are not spread evenly, then it will affect the experiment. The plants farthest from where the nutrients were placed all died. We will up the salt content and fix the nutrient problem in the next cycle. With this recent cycle, we took all the necessary measurements and have them written down in a spreadsheet in the WISRD google drive. We are about to start the next cycle with new plants and new salt content.

I am working on a white paper that will cover every component of the lab’s construction and maintenance. We also just finished the spring poster presentation where we showed our progress in a poster that we made. As PI, I made almost the entirety of the poster as well as helped with Kezie’s poster. We also just conducted the WISRD board retreat. This was my first board retreat so it was very interesting and gave me a good perspective on how WISRD is run on a year-to-year basis. I am running for treasurer of WISRD for the 2022-2023 year. 

2/25/2022

We added the water to the lab and put the plants in. We then made sure the water level was stable and then covered the lab in tin foil to prevent algae growth. This means the lab is now running again! The water level sensor has been installed and every member of the Hydroponics group is in a Discord chat where we would be notified if the lab overflows. This sensor was developed by Nikita and the Discord and notification system was built by Colin F. I posted a tweet on WISRD’s Twitter going over the updates of the lab that can be seen here.

2/14/2022

We removed the lettuce from the lab because it was overgrown. We took measurements and collected data from them. We then planted new lettuce for the next round of the experiment. I calculated how much salt needed to be added to each jug of water to have the correct salinity amount. We are adding 100mmol NaCl to Tube 3, 50mmol NaCl to Tube 2, and 0mmol NaCl to Tube 1 as a control tube. These amounts were decided by looking at the last group’s amounts and slightly altering them. The last group used 40 and 80 instead of 50 and 100, and their plants did not show significant changes in growth, because of this, we are slightly raising each amount to see if we can find some more dramatic changes in growth. If we do find dramatic changes, then we will proceed by altering the amount and refining it until we find a maximum amount the plants can survive with. If we don’t find dramatic changes, we will continue raising the amount. 

I have continued attending and contributing to every WISRD Board Meeting. I founded the WISRD LGBTQ committee with Tobey S and Allyson S. We met today and discussed what the goals of the club are and how we plan on continuing. We came up with a plan that we will present to the Board for approval during the next board meeting. 

1/6/2022

After returning from a 2-week break, the hydroponics lab was pleased to find tremendous growth in our lettuce. I posted a tweet on WISRD’s Twitter celebrating this growth that can be seen here. We also saw that the nutrients we added to the water had turned it green, which is of no concern because the previous WISRD hydroponics group had seen similar effects. 

11/30/2021

The Hydroponics lab has moved the plants into the actual lab. We are finally ready to experiment with them! I posted a tweet on WISRD’s Twitter that can be seen here. 

11/17/2021

The hydroponics lab is ready to begin experimenting! We have recleaned the lab and distilled all the needed water, so we are prepared to fill the lab with the distilled water. We will run the experiment once without any salinity testing just to confirm that we can successfully grow plants in a hydroponics format. 

11/8/2021

The poster presentation was today. We drew in a lot of interest in hydroponics with many follow-up questions from presentation attendees. It was a very successful night and a good demonstration of the work we have put in throughout the year so far. We will now be moving on to planting our seeds and then beginning the experiment. 

11/5/2021

The hydroponics group has just submitted their poster for the spring poster session. I took on the making of the poster so much of it is my work. The poster presentation is on the 8th, so hopefully, it will be a good opportunity to show off the hard work we have been putting in. The distiller is fully ready, we can now begin to put water into the lab and then get the experiment started. 

10/18/2021

We encountered many issues with refilling the lab with water. We have been taking the conductivity of the water that we distilled to measure how effective the distiller is. The seeds that we planted in the small planters have unfortunately grown too much in the time since we planted them, so we will need to replant them eventually. We expected to be able to move the plants into the lab soon after planting, so we should wait to replant until the lab is fully ready. 

10/5/2021

We have fully rebuilt the lab. The water distiller has presented some problems, but we are getting very close to fully functioning. We have planted the lettuce and have sprouts so we are ready to move it over to the lab once it is ready. I am getting my pitch prepared for The Inquirer. 

9/17/2021

The lab has been running for a week and has been operating as hoped. We deconstructed it today in order to deep clean it, and are going to reconstruct it and add the distilled water next week. Once that is done, we will begin planting!

9/15/2021

I made my first tweet of the year to announce our progress in the lab, and to show the functioning lab. The tweet can be found here.

9/10/2021

We have fully repaired the lab and filled it with water. The power switch is connected to my phone so I can turn it on and off using Bluetooth. We are letting it run for a couple of days in order to make sure it is functional and to filter through the water a bit. 

8/30/2021

The hydroponics team has come together. I am gonna be working with Zyan, Ridley, Kezie, and Nikita. 

8/24/2021

Today was the first day of WISRD in the new school year. I am planning on sending out an email shortly to all new WISRD members asking for people to join the Hydroponics Lab. Hopefully, I can get through the recruiting process quickly so I can begin picking back up on the research.

5/20/2021

The Inquirer was published with my article as the lead article! It is attached here.

4/28/2021

Today was the WISRD board meeting to nominate people for the board, and I was voted on. I will now be acting as a voting member of the WISRD board for next year. This is very exciting for me as I will now be able to contribute to decision-making within WISRD. 

4/26/2021

I presented at the spring poster presentation with the rest of the radio telescope group. This poster presentation was a lot easier since I knew what to expect. We based much of our work off of our fall poster and only changed the elements that had developed more, so there was much less work. 

4/10/2021

All members of the Hydroponics lab are graduating, so I have begun transitioning away from the radio telescope and towards taking over this lab. I will continue working in hydroponics for the remainder of my tenure at WISRD. The rest of the year I will spend acclimating to hydroponics instead of working with the radio telescope.

3/26/2021

My article made The Inquirer! I am going to be the lead article, making me the first freshman to be granted the lead article. I am very excited!

2/29/2021

I have completed my article and submitted it. My article was entitled Basketball and the Quest for Efficiency.

1/20/2021

We are collaborating with many other groups through Discord, and allowing them to use our telescope to collect data of their own. This collaboration will open up countless opportunities for future endeavors. 

12/6/2021

We have concluded most of the prep work on the telescope and are now collecting data. 

11/9/2020

I presented at the fall poster presentation with the rest of the radio telescope group. This was my first poster session so I did not entirely know what to expect, but I think we did a good job of communicating our work effectively. 

10/28/2020

I presented on dark matter day along with my fellow members of the radio telescope group. We discussed our work thus far and what our goals are for the future.

9/28/2020

I am going to be working with Izze S. to help run the Instagram. I think that having this as a side project along with my main work on the radio telescope will fit my interests well. In general, social media work comes pretty naturally to me and I enjoy doing it. 

9/24/2020

I presented at back-to-school night on my experience as a first-year student and shared what it is like to first get acclimated to WISRD. 

9/21/2020

Joe has directed me towards the radio telescope project as a project for me to look into. I have read through the DSPIRA web page, and am going to begin building a LNA that will be used in one of WISRD’s three radio telescopes. 

9/2/2020

Hi, I’m Max. I am just getting started with WISRD. I am not sure exactly what I am going to work on during my time in WISRD, but I have always had a strong interest in space, so I am going to begin by looking into working on the radio telescope project.