Tie Dye’d Lab Coats
Yesterday I tie dyed a few lab coats with Drew from work. He came over and we washed the coats, soaked the coats in activator, tied them, dyed them, cured them, rinsed them, and washed them. Then we drew some equations and chemical symbols on them to make them cooler (yes, that is how we are defining ‘cooler’ in this case).
All in all, they made quite a splash at work today. We are now officially the coolest geeks in the building. I also started doing a brand new demonstration on Electrostatics today, and the lab coat brought a good start to a new demo. I shock kids with static electricity, send over 7000 volts of electricity through my body to light up a fluorescent light bulb, and zap myself with a 250,000 volt Van de Graff generator. Fun stuff.
This is a picture of that lab coat. It is quite nice. The molecule drawn on the pocket is glucose, and the other pocket (not visible) depicts 1,3,7-trimethylxanthine, also known as caffeine (oh yeah!). Drew’s lab coat currently shows Maxwell’s equations describing electromagnetic behavior, as well as Faraday’s Law of Magnetic Induction, which is a pretty hip law, if I do say so myself.
I’m pretty satisfied with how they came out, though next time I’m going to let the dye cure a little more, to get brighter colors. Its still pretty bright though!
Wednesday 24 Sep 2003 | Sam | Personal
that is way too cool. i totally want one. but then again why do i need a lab coat. i guess there is really nothing else to say about that incredibly bright coat. oh except that it looks absolutely fabulous with your long luxurious hair.
Brian at Little Shop will be wanting one! Nice job guys!!
Sam, that sure is a great lab coat. Possibly equally striking is that interesting lamp in the background. Where could I get such a thing?...
Right now I am exceedingly pissed-off because I just got a notice from financial aid saying that in order to receive financial aid from my department, I had to be enrolled in 10 credit hours (I am enrolled in 9). Interestingly, each class is 3 credits…
what an excellent lab coat, sam. i remember long ago in freshman chemistry lab, getting funny looks for my tie-dye lab coat.
and perhaps someone should nominate you for the luxuriant flowing hairclub for scientists, where you can join the ranks of queen guitarist and ertsatz astronomer brian may, as well as ibiblio.org director and frequent cwa participant paul jones
The Luxuriant Flowing Hair Club for Scientists is a prestigious organization, but perhaps my locks have become luxuriant enough to warrant my entry. It would truely be an honor to belong to the same organization as Brian May and Richard Feynmann.
Oh and will, if you want the lamp, come and get it.