Laboratory Exploration

A lot of classes in college are taught in conjunction with a lab. Fortunately or unfortunately depending on how you look at it, I have two labs this semester. I enjoy both of them for the most part, except for the weekly lab reports. Each lab has a fee and usually some sort of extra expenses.

The lab fee at the beginning of the year, entitles me to some really cool experiments. I’m thankful my scholarships cover the onetime fee in my tuition. The most recent experiment was very cool, because we made a tower out of basswood. The wood was purchased and supplied by the lab instructor. We just had to supply our glue. He said he did not want to be responsible for stuck fingers and any mess we might cause in the lab. My lab group decided to split the cost of the glue. It was not a big deal to shell out a couple of dollars for several tubes of superglue. It might get old if I had to do this every week, but the tower project is only once a semester. This was one of my favorite labs, because we drew up tower plans, choose building materials, constructed a 10 inch tower, and tested till failure. It is especially rewarding when our group designed the best tower in all the three testing criteria: weight, load capacity, and efficiency.

Unlike some majors on campus, my major is lab intensive. The unfortunate side of labs is the extra expense in tuition. These labs allow for hands on experience and reinforce the theories and methods taught in the class room. I embrace the fortunate side of labs with open arms, in hopes that I will become a better engineer and hopefully more appealing to a future employer.