Stage Fright
In my first blog, I wrote about how problems are inevitable in scientific research. Luckily, wherever there’s a problem, there’s usually a solution lurking not too far away. In the case of my difficulty with increment corers (which are used to extract cores from trees), the solution was to use newer, sharper corers than the ones I had been using. It also helped that after a few weeks of coring, I got better at it and was able to core more quickly. Things in the field are going smoothly now, and with help from Peter, the technician whose been coring with me, I now have over three hundred cores. That means I have a lot of gluing, sanding, and measuring do to back in the lab. A day of sharp coring leads to at least two days of dull lab work.
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Of course, lab work can have just as many problems as field work. Shortly after I started using the new corers, the stage (the instrument I use to measure the distance between tree rings) stopped working. The stage consists of a moveable platform with a device on the side that measures how far the platform has moved. When the stage is working properly, I turn a crank that slowly moves the platform and look at the core on a small screen hooked up to a microscope. Whenever I see a ring in the crosshairs on the screen, I press a button, and a computer program logs the distance that has passed since the last ring. However, the crank doesn’t move the platform any more. I turn it around and around, and nothing happens. Yesterday, after Jim (the PI), Peter, and I dismantled the platform, we decided that the grooves holding the platform to the crank had been stripped, so I called the company that made the stage and spoke to someone named Alan. The call went something like this:
Me: Hi, I have a support question about one of your products.
Alan: What’s the product number?
(I read him the product number, which I forget right now)
Alan: You have one of those! Wow, I didn’t know anybody was still using those. What’s the problem?
Me: Well, when I turn the crank nothing happens. The platform doesn’t move. So I took it apart, and…
Alan (laughs at me): You took it apart! Oh, you’ve done it now. You’ve really done it now.
Me: Was that bad?
Alan: Probably. I’m going to transfer you to Kevin, and he’ll tell you what to do.
Kevin told me that I needed to send the platform back, along with a sheet that he would fax to me. Finding a fax machine in the 21st century is no easy task, but I found one, and he faxed me the sheet. He also told me that by taking apart the stage, we might have damaged it further, breaking a fragile glass strip that somehow connected to the measuring device. This turned out not to have happened, but I got pretty worried. Even though the stage didn’t break from its dismemberment, it still looks like we’ll have to send the platform to the company, which could take a while.
At the end of the day yesterday, Jim found another, even older stage lying around the lab, and I went in today to try and hook it up to the computer. After arranging the platform, the measuring device, and the computer several different ways, nothing seemed to work. I now have no stage to work with, and because my research depends on measuring the distance between rings, it’s getting a bit frustrating. Still, I know there’s a solution lurking out there somewhere, and if I look thoroughly, I’m bound to find it sooner or later. Until then, I have plenty of gluing and sanding to do.
