Archive for the ‘fun’ Category:
CLT #21: Ay! You!
by azmanam on Jan 31 2012 (2637 Views)Welcome back to CLT!
I found this cartoon doodled on the back of a quiz I gave last week in my organic chemistry class. The artist gave me permission to scan his contribution and post it here on the blog for everyone to enjoy. Made me chuckle.
Click the image for larger.
via one of my students!
Enjoy!
CLT #20: Practical Joker
by azmanam on Jan 24 2012 (6035 Views)Welcome back to Cheap Laugh Tuesdays!
More from the Far Side. (note: I don't think this is a good idea. Don't try this on your coworkers 
)
via The Far Side
Enjoy!
Organic Chemistry Extra Credit You Tube Parody Videos
by azmanam on Jan 20 2012 (6274 Views)Last spring, a few of my students made me an awesome parody video of Rebecca Black's Friday, "It's Lab Day."
This semester, nearly half my class turned in lots of great parody videos. Not all of them wanted to be shared publicly, but here are most of the videos my class made me!
Sunglasses in Lab
Two notes about this one: the guy singing a) is part of our university's a Capella group (no AutoTune here), and b) actually does wear tinted safety glasses in lab
Last Ochem Class
It's true that our department is broke and can't afford sep funnels, so we do extractions in measuring cups.
Organic Chemistry
A nice sampling of three songs while daydreaming in class: one I don't recognize, Billionaire, and Party Rock Anthem
OChem Rock Anthem
Keeping with the LMFAO theme.
Round Bottom Flask
Parody of Toby Keith's Red Solo Cup. Nice shout out to James over at Master Organic Chemistry in this one.
Organic Chemistry Tips
Like Kramer's Peterman Reality Tour, I never thought someone could recreate the experience of actually being in my class, but this is pretty close.
An OChem Christmas
The students turned these in at the end of fall semester, so several had Christmas themes. The first one has a pretty low volume, be warned, but awesome hair decorations. Followed by The 12 Days of OChem, and O' Chemistry.
Enjoy!
Cheap Laugh Tuesdays #19: How to Avoid 'Chem-Speak'
by azmanam on Jan 17 2012 (4658 Views)Welcome back to CLT!
Back to Sidney Harris this week (last seen as the inspiration for the Fantasy Research League)
Enjoy!
Cheap Laugh Tuesdays #18: Base Guitar
by azmanam on Jan 10 2012 (6398 Views)Welcome back to CLT!
via Mr. Brügge's Eighth Graders, although this particular one seems to be broken on that page
Enjoy!
Cheap Laugh Tuesdays #17: Molecular Modeling
by azmanam on Jan 03 2012 (4716 Views)Welcome back to CLT!
It's a brand new year, and I've got lots more cheap laughs for you
(I know the comic isn't original to Chemical Innovation, but I can't decipher the artist's name and can't find a link to the original work...)
Enjoy!
Cheap Laugh Tuesdays #16: Final's Edition
by azmanam on Dec 20 2011 (4389 Views)Welcome back to CLT!
Sorry I missed last week. Last week was finals week here on campus, and due to a scheduling oversight, I had 14 lab reports to grade, and a final to write, proctor, then grade. And by 14 lab reports, I don't mean 14 people's lab reports, I mean 14 class's lab reports, w/ 18-20 students in each lab. I was a bit busy.
via PhD Comics
Enjoy!
Neat-o Curved Arrows in Chemdraw
by azmanam on Dec 09 2011 (7573 Views)UPDATE: New Catalytic Cycle video below!
James (of Master Organic Chemistry and the Reagents App/Guide fame) and I had some off-line conversations about curved arrows in ChemDraw. I don't particularly like the suite of arrows ChemDraw gives us in the Arrow Tools menu. Yeah, they give you 4 arc angles, but you have to guess if you need the clockwise or counterclockwise arrow... and I just don't like them. They look, i dunno, amateur or less professional or something. Nothing against people who use the standard arrows, I just don't like them.
So over the years I've become quite adept at using the Edit Curve function in ChemDraw. It allows me to make my arrows look however I want them to. I have a couple of arrow shapes I particularly enjoy, and I use them a lot.
James (@jamesashchem) gave me a hat tip on Twitter for showing him the new arrows, at which point Mark Peczuh (@mwpeczuh) requested a public YouTube video.
So I made one. Here it is. If you already know how to use the Edit Curve function then cool. If not, hope it helps
12/12/11:
Thanks to everyone who left kind comments about the curved arrow video. Stephen Davey (@stephengdavey) asked if the Edit Curve function could make curly q arrows. I'd never tried to make one like that before, so I took a crack at it. Turns out, this arrow doesn't work so well with the Edit Curve function (unless some actual graphic designer knows more about making paths than I do. If so, please let me know!!). I ended up combining an arc, an arrow, and a circle and the effect looked ok. Here are my failed attempts, plus the final output (click for larger):
Later, Bal (@gnak_lab) asked about an easy way to draw catalytic cycles. I think the question was referring to the "circle of arrows" like in this mechanism for the Heck reaction. I've done catalytic cycles before, but was never really pleased with the result either. Then I had an idea. You can add curvature to straight arrows... so I though if I started with a circle as a template, added the arrows, then deleted the circle, that might just work. So without practicing first, I shot a video on me making the catalytic cycle for the Sonogashira reaction (I just recreated the mechanism from that site). The video for that is below. It's not a polished mechanism, I'd go back and tweak a few things, but for a first try, I think it turned out pretty well
(video at 2x speed for brevity)
Cheap Laugh Tuesdays #15: Emeril Chemistry
by azmanam on Dec 06 2011 (7665 Views)Welcome back to CLT!
via Andrew Toos
Enjoy!
