Last Meeting

Overall: I met with Dr. Splawn and Dr. Pittman to begin wrapping up this project. My presentation is done so now I just need to practice and pray for God take control of my communication skills like he did with Moses.

It'll Do

Overall: Overall I've accomplished somewhat proving that acid is produced in the oral cavity when in contact with corn oil. This was (finally but not totally) demonstrated with three subjects using acid-base titration, using the whole mixed sample and making sure to have ethanol be 28% of composition. By not totally, I mean that we still have to get the pH graphs to look like they're suppose to and more subjects and more time variations and more other stuff before you can put a stamp on it. Other than today being my last experimenting day of Interim, I still have to stress/dread presentation and get that paper behind me. If I had to do it all over again, I'd have stopped the experiment once the first procedure failed and have waited until Dr. Splawn returned so I could have had at least some knowledge of the topic rather than just the experiment.

So Close =/

Overall: I titrated three corn oil samples, one water sample, and three saliva and corn oil swirled in my mouth for 10 minute samples. Dr. Splawn and I used a different pH meter to titrate four 10 minute samples which included: the procedure from yesterday, just the yellow color mixture, just the white color mixture, then one of just the entire sample that I spat out of my mouth. None of them showed a titration inflection curve line thingy.

Officially We're Getting Somewhere

Overall: Dr. Splawn and I titrated my spit alone and corn oil alone and one 5 minute swirl mix and three 10 minute swirl mixes. The mixed concentrations were higher in acid than the spit and corn oil alone added together, so that does prove there was acid production in my mouth while I swirled.
     Dr. Pittman helped me get started on my powerpoint presentation.

...grr

Overall: I found out that every titration I've done from January 10 to this morning is not usable because either the samples were not soluble enough or unnecessary. Dr. Splawn came back from his interim class in Hawaii today and broke the news to me. We performed new procedures that were similar to the ones he left me and the results did not show a production of acid either. Dr. Splawn and Dr. Arrington talked things over and they've come up with different procedures for me to do in the morning. I feel alot of pressure with this paper and presentation over my head, feeling like I should have spent the last two weeks reading and studying, and having less than a week to work something up. I need encouragement.

I Hope This Works

9:00 AM: I met with Dr. Pittman and Dr. Arrington to discuss what parts of last week's procedures were good and what we could add to them to improve the data. We added a heated water bath, heated up to our body temperature, and let the saliva samples and corn oil sit in it. We titrated two subjects' samples.

Overall: I hope this works.

Ah Ha

10:00 AM: I standardized the NaOH and discussed my graphing issues with Dr. Arrington. He was curious to see the effects of adding oleic acid to a mix so we titrated one drop by drop recording the volume and the pH after 10 seconds. The graph still didn't represent the expected pH graph, so we titrated saliva and corn oil and let the pH meter do the graphing (ran twice). These graphs appeared more logarithmic too. However, we did take note when each sample started to change its tint and they all did so around the pH level of 10.3, so now in theory, I'll know I've reached the endpoint or expect it to be around the pH level of 10.3.

Overall: I don't know (experimentally) where I need to go from here, so me Dr. Arrington and Dr. Pittman are going to meet Monday to discuss what's happening.