In the modern system of scientific research and education, scientific experiments are absolutely essential. Whether in a process to contribute a new scientific innovation or provide a basic introduction to science for young students, experimentation is the most common and effective way to reach the goals. For example, in the field of electrochemistry, many professors believe that conducting experiments in the classroom offers unique opportunities for interactive instruction, which allows students to better understand the concepts. However, because electrochemistry instruments are very expensive, many educators miss out on this good teaching opportunity. So with the idea of making electrochemistry accessible to everyone, our clients Rebecca Clark and Matt Verber developed Sweepstat, a low-cost universal electrochemical platform, with their team in UNC so that scientists can perform electrochemical measurements such as voltammetry and amperometry easily and cheaply.

Sweepstat is now used in combination with the lab-view software. In this software, users will connect to the Sweepstat via Bluetooth, and can see their experimental parameters, real-time data, and basic experimental images. In the last year, they have developed an Android version of the app to help users interface with Sweepstat more easily on mobile devices. In this year's project, we (Matt Wasyluk, Yang Hu, and Yumeng Zhang) will help Rebecca and Matt to develop an IOS app with new features to make Sweepstat more accessible to broader people. The functions of this app include connecting to Sweepstat via Bluetooth, acquiring real-time data and generating corresponding images; automatically analyzing the obtained data, identifying peaks, and calculating the required values; uploading experimental data to the cloud for subsequent model analysis; and remediating the instrument noise. In addition, we will further improve the existing lab-view software and Android app by adding new features to them and completing the GUI to improve aesthetics.

The target users of this product at the beginning could be professors who can use this product for educational instructions, students who can use it for electrochemistry experiments, and other scientists who can use it for scientific and technological innovations. But according to our customer, in the future, “we ultimately hope to use this app to make electrochemical measurements available to the general public.”

The reason we thought this project was important and chose it is because we saw the long-term impact Sweepstat would have on the spread of education behind the project. We believe that this product contributes significantly to the modern approach and performance of education. At the same time, we hope that with our help, Sweepstat could spread more widely and have a positive impact on more people!