Week 9 - Trial and Error

The past couple of weeks has been busy! My daughter has been diagnosed with autism and needs to have speech therapy and occupational therapy. We got her started at Therapy Tree, and we go three times a week for each session. Tackling these appointments while undergoing a research project can be stressful. 

Although this week has been challenging with time management, I have begun working on my project by doing some experimenting. I decided to run a trial of Cyanoacrylate fuming (super glue fuming) on the materials, metal, wood, plastic, glass, paper, and leather. I began by putting together a safe chamber I made out of an old Amazon box and sealed it with duct tape. I purchased a candle warmer and super glue to get the fumes needed to show the latent prints on the materials I am testing. I put the super glue into a container I made out of foil placed on top of the warmer. Once the box was sealed shut, I turned on the wax warmer, releasing the fumes that adhere to the latent prints on the material. 

You want to make sure you are either outside or have a proper hood when opening the chamber because the fumes are very toxic. However, when I opened the chamber after 10 minutes of fuming, I could only see slight visibility on the glass material in the chamber. 

When conducting this experiment again, I want to try and do only one material at a time and keep the item in the chamber for a more extended period to see if the results may change.