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SEAN ROBINSON: So we have a
menu of about 20 experiments

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in the lab.

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Each student will
do three or four

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over the course of a semester.

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New experiments come
into lab every few years.

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They usually start
with an idea, usually

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coming from a faculty
member somewhere

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in the Department of Physics.

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Sometimes, the idea
for a new experiment

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is something that was
in a research lab.

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Sometimes it's just
something that's

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a classic technique which has,
say, become a standard thing

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that the graduate students in
a particular professor's lab

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have to do on a routine basis--

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getting that into a mold that
works within the structure

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of our semester, where
students are typically

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spending about two weeks
performing the experiment.

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We want an experiment
in this lab

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to be something
which doesn't simply

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work when you turn it on.

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We want the students to
have to cause it to work.

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We don't want people to simply
turn the apparatus on and get

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data.

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We want them to cause the
apparatus to give good data.

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That usually means
there's something

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they have to calibrate.

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It usually means
there's lots of settings

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on various parts of
the apparatus, which

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some of the settings give bad
data and some of the settings

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give good data.

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And the students constantly
have to be going back and forth

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between some preliminary
analysis and data

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taking in order to
evaluate whether or not

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the data they've
collected is good,

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whether the settings they've
set on their apparatus

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are any good.

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Getting a piece of
apparatus, which

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has been designed
by a faculty member,

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as a beautiful piece
of research apparatus

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which works in a reliable way,
in the hands of an expert,

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and getting into something which
a student, who is seeing it

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for the first time,
can operate in a way

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where they have enough
intellectual space

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on the apparatus that they can
explore it, and understand how

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different parts of it work or
don't work, and yet still have

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it be robust enough that
it, say, doesn't break.

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It will work consistently
from one roughly

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two week period when a certain
student group is working on it

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to when the next student
group is working on it.

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That tends to be more
of a design challenge.

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We get into a routine
back and forth

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between the faculty
member who's championing

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the experiment and
the technical staff

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really understanding what
parts of an experiment

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have to be changed.

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And then, ultimately,
someone has

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to write a manual
for the experiment.

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There's a model we've been
using for the past few years

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where we get an
experiment to the point

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where we think it's a pretty
good piece of apparatus

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that a student will be able to
learn a lot by performing it.

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Yet we still don't have
any manual written for it,

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no instructions or anything.

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So if a new student were to just
walk up to it at that point,

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it would be really a
research project for them

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to get it working.

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Within the structure
of Junior Lab,

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we actually do have some
room for that type of thing.

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And the second semester
of Junior Lab, which

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is Subject 8.14, one of the
experiments the students have

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to perform in the
course of the semester

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is not simply something from our
menu of roughly 20 experiments,

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but it's something they
have to develop themselves.

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They have to write a proposal,
get that proposal approved

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by the funding committee, which
is the staff in Junior Lab,

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and then, ultimately,
perform that experiment,

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analyze the data, and then
present it to their peers.

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We have a poster session that
we close out the semester

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with in that course.

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So something that has been
useful for the past few years

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when we've developed
a new experiment

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is we try to find one of
these student groups in 8.14

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who volunteers to
perform that experiment

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without any guidance,
without any manual.

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They run it through,
basically, as beta testers,

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from our point of view, and tell
us which things worked well,

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which things didn't work well.

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And 100% of the time so
far, when we've tried this,

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the students always
discover something new

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that that apparatus can do,
some new physics measurement

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that we didn't think of.

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And those new discoveries
by the students

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who perform that the first
time, without any guidance,

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inevitably, those become
part of the manual

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that eventually future students
use as the standard manual

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going forward.