Renovation Updates!!

My students have asked for a website update to reflect all of our collective progress the past few months.  Indeed there are near-daily improvements happening in the lab, so let’s celebrate some major milestones.  In no particular order:

Nearly overnight, we have grown from 3 students to 7.  Welcome to Hannah, Aubrey, Greg, and Andrew, profiles to be posted soon!

The outdoor flume (home of the TxDOT concrete median barrier project) is under renovations to remove old equipment and prepare it for our large scale tests.  I have wonderful undergraduate students who have been doing some intense sledgehammering.

 

Our indoor flume from 1972 has seen a lot of work — lead paint is now dealt with and the cracked and damaged glass panels have been removed.  Windows have been cut through the steel base so we can shoot lasers up through the bottom, and … it has been painted green, because why not. It’s beautiful. In another week or  wo the new acrylic liners should be installed so we can maybe get water back in — fingers crossed!  It is remarkable.

 

 

And finally, the actual “JET Lab” is built and already a mess, meaning – research is happening! Wires are being spliced, fishtanks are housing mini-experiments (while the big tanks are being manufactured), lasers and cameras and dyes and all sorts of goodies are arriving in the mail every day.  It is a beautiful lab and I have had an incredible amount of support from Facilities, the Cockrell School, my department and center, and the contractors who have come in to make this a reality.  And of course, my students, who are always willing to get their hands wet.  I am beyond thrilled.