It’s often the way of the world that a new electronic toy will always encounter teething problems, whether it be a new phone or a computer. It’s a learning process, figuring out what all those mysterious buttons do. This is especially true with “The Stig”, the latest piece of equipment to grace one of the laboratories of the University of Lincoln. On Wednesday morning, “The Stig” dug its heels into the ground and refused to cooperate, so it was back to the safety of the microbiology labs, where the technology was slightly more cooperative.

It was a more sedate morning than the one before, where we had been dissecting the various organs of a pig (a.k.a the “glamorous” work). Microbes require time to adapt and grow on their new homes, such as the various agar plates being used for specific organisms, so it was the task for that morning to check how they were growing, if they grew at all, and to plan the next course of action, especially for their storage for future use by other students at another time.

In the afternoon, we were visited by Professor Paul Stewart, who is Pro Vice Chancellor Research and was Founding Head of the new Engineering Hub for the School of Engineering.

http://www.lincoln.ac.uk/engineering/staff/PStewart/p_stewart.htm

He was given a tour of the main microbiology teaching lab whilst Dr. Bates and Dr. Williams explained the work we had been doing, and how it provided us with additional valuable experience that we were unable to obtain elswhere, while we students shuffled around trying to avoid the Professor Stewart’s camera. Unfortunately, pictures were eventually taken…

Tammy hard at work