• Question: On your last project assignment, what problems did you identify that had been previously overlooked?

    Asked by Abi to Jamie, Kristen, Sheun, Simon, Will on 22 Jun 2015.
    • Photo: William Scott-Jackson

      William Scott-Jackson answered on 22 Jun 2015:


      My last project (before my current one) is my final year project at University and a problem that came at us then was that we didn’t anticipate how little time the technicians had to devote to manufacturing parts of a our project. An oversight that cost us dearly! We weren’t able to do anything about the problem once we’d identified it however.

    • Photo: Jamie Johnston

      Jamie Johnston answered on 23 Jun 2015:


      On my last project, we identified an interesting issue where we had made design decisions based on a lot of literature, both from suppliers and academic journals, only to find that they had all tested a theory in exactly the same way. An experiment that was controlled by pressure and density of fluid over time, measuring a concentration at the end, but none of them controlled or acknowledged the time aspect. For their applications this was acceptable but had a dramatic effect on ours. The result was that we had to perform all the testing ourselves and amended our design. It cost us a lot of time on the project so the moral is to not always trust the literature!

    • Photo: Sheun Oshinbolu

      Sheun Oshinbolu answered on 23 Jun 2015:


      On my last project I was working in generating DNA sequences. I had correctly identified the sequence I needed and ordered it online. The problem I faced was the the DNA didn’t insert itself into the plasmid I was working with. I tried multiple times and couldn’t get it to work. I showed it to another colleague and they told me they way I written it on the order form was the wrong way round! I re-ordered it any everything worked, so it pays off to speak and reach out for help 🙂

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