• Question: When you start an experiment how long or how many times does it take to get a result?

    Asked by Ava to Claire, Aisling, Anil, Leona, Micki on 9 Nov 2015. This question was also asked by 534nand46.
    • Photo: Anil Jain

      Anil Jain answered on 9 Nov 2015:

      Normally my experiments are to see how well my circuit is working. some take couple of weeks and some other might take couple of months. It all depends on the application of my device.

    • Photo: Micki Mitchell

      Micki Mitchell answered on 9 Nov 2015:

      There is no direct answer to that.. Depends how the stars are aligned, especially if you work with biologics! Something that may take a couple of hours normally could leave you pulling your hair out for weeks.. Or you may get incredibly lucky and hit on something first go. There are no rules or sense in research when it comes to how long an experiment should take!

    • Photo: Leona Mc Girr

      Leona Mc Girr answered on 9 Nov 2015:

      That can sometimes be down to luck! You could get it the first time or the 50th time but you just have to keep going and learning from each attempt.

    • Photo: Claire O'Connell

      Claire O'Connell answered on 9 Nov 2015:

      For my experiments if all goes well, I can get an experiment done in about 6 hours. Sometimes the experiments take a bit of optimising to get the best results but with a bit of tweeking I can usually get an answer within a week or two depending on what I’m doing!

    • Photo: Aisling Kerr

      Aisling Kerr answered on 9 Nov 2015:

      That really depends on the experiment! If something interesting happens, I usually have to run have to the experiment multiple times to ensure the data is consistent and not just a fluke. For very big projects it could take weeks to co-ordinate with everyone involved to get everything tied up!

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