Lab Wizard

Your lab assistant on the go!

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Inspiration

I have been a research assistant at the Florida Solar Energy Center in the past and had close interaction with researchers working there. I am grateful to be living in an era where we are enjoying the fruits of labor of the past generations' hard work. I would love to be able to put to use my engineering, programming and data analysis experience towards accelerating progress with this mobile app.

What it does

Lab Wizard is a mobile app with a simple, uncluttered GUI designed for Android OS. It uses data provided by the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) but is not endorsed or certified by NIST. The app was tested on a Samsung Galaxy S5 smartphone.

It makes the following datasets easily accessible:

  1. NIST ITS-90 thermocouple coefficients (NIST SRD 60)
  2. NIST ITS-90 thermoelectric voltages (NIST SRD 60)
  3. Ground levels and ionization energies for the neutral atoms (NIST SRD111)
  4. NIST computational chemistry comparison and benchmark database (CCCBDB, NIST SRD 101)
  5. Codata fundamental physical constants (NIST SRD 121)
  6. Atomic weights and isotropic compositions (NIST SRD 144)

How I built it

I built it using Android Studio (Java) and Google Firebase. The json data is located in a free Firebase account which can be periodically updated with new files from NIST as required.

Challenges I ran into

I tried to upload Thermochemical tables but got stuck as there were some formatting issues with the data. CCBDB Computational chemistry search results take time to load due to the enormous size of the data.

Accomplishments that I'm proud of

The app runs well on my Samsung Galaxy S5 and I can picture myself using it often in a lab setting or while commuting. It was my first time using Firebase, I learnt to use it on my own and was able to complete the project (almost!) as planned.

What I learned

A lot more things could be done with mobile apps to make the world a better place.

What's next for NIST reference data

I look forward to the opportunity to do more work on this app and adding new data and enhanced design.

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