Project Chemistree!
Before we go any further, yes I’m aware that it’s March. Like I said - full time work’s hard guys.
In about October last year I had a crazy idea. It went something along the lines of “remember how your old chemistry lab mates used to make that Christmas tree out of lab equipment? How cool would it be to do that at Science Space?”
And then it sort of… exploded out of control.
Look, I’m an ideas person. It’s not a bad thing by any means but it often means I’m more than just a little bit ambitious. I took my idea to our marketing manager and she said “that sounds great but what’s special about ours?”
To which I said “hold my beer…”
With the UOW School of Chemistry on board, I set about getting together a giant tree as well as a bunch of researchers to donate chemicals and stories about how they use them.
The tree in all of its glory on the floor at Science Space!
With the help of our Work Experience Intern Merrilyn McKee, who is FAN-FLIPPING-TASTIC by the way, and our technical manager Wayne Elton, we built a GIANT tree made out of galvanised steel and MacGyver-ed a way to hold a bunch of flask clamps in place. It was surprisingly easy to put the frame together - everything sort of screwed together like a massive jigsaw. Getting the thing to stay upright was a bit trickier…
Some crazy-heavy metal base plates and giant screws later and we were ready to decorate it.
Working with a 12 researchers from the School of Chemistry, I wrote up pieces based on each of the flasks. We had everything from golden rain to a plastic snake to fluorescent dyes and 3D-printed molecules. If you’d like more information (and I DEFINITELY encourage you to check it out) you can read through the blog posts HERE.
This project was so much fun and so interesting! Who knows - perhaps this year’s tree will be a geolotree? Or a Biolotree? Or and Astronotree?
Science Space is a not-for-profit organisation at the University of Wollongong. All work presented here is my own, created while employed as an Experience Officer. The tree was built with help from Wayne Elton and Merilyn McKee.
