Category: science kits

09:39 – I’ll be working on kit stuff all day.

09:23 – The Christmas rush has started. We’ve shipped six kits so far this morning, and we’re likely to remain busy right up through Monday the 23rd. USPS does an all-out push for Christmas. They treat Priority Mail 2- and 3-day packages like Express Mail if that’s what it takes to get them delivered by Christmas. They even deliver anything that looks like it may be a gift on Christmas morning if necessary.

We’re going to be pressed to keep up, not just with getting kits shipped, but with getting more built to meet demand. I went through our component inventory yesterday and had Barbara labeling and filling bottles of stuff we were very short on. We now have enough of everything in stock to build another two dozen each of the biology and chemistry kits, in addition to what’s already in finished-goods inventory. We will have enough components to build another dozen or so forensic science kits once the polarizing filters arrive. But I’m going to be busier than the proverbial one-armed violinist.

16:26 – Wow. The first seven days of the month were pretty slow, but today was hectic. Put it this way: if we ship as many kits per day for the next two days as we did today, we’ll exceed total December 2012 kit sales–units and revenue–in only three days. That’s assuming that we can build enough kits fast enough to meet demand.

08:34 – The forecasts claim we’ll have freezing rain on and off all day, with temperatures hovering right around freezing. We were planning to do a Costco run this afternoon, but there’s nothing we need urgently. We’ll just stay in today and work on kit stuff.

10:49 – Somewhere around here, I have a storage bin that contains (according to my inventory records) 40 polarizing filters, enough for 20 pairs. I need those for the forensic science kits, but I can’t find them. So I just ordered a hundred more. I’m sure the others will turn up at some point.

09:25 – A date that will live in infamy.

Barbara is off running errands this morning. I’m doing laundry. I just shipped another forensic science kit, so our top priority kit-wise this weekend is to build another couple dozen sets of subassemblies for the forensic kits.

One of my long-time regular email correspondents who lives in Edmonton emailed me to say that their high yesterday was -24C (-11F), not counting wind chill. I also note that, probably not a coincidence, Heartland wrapped shooting season seven yesterday. It films in a Calgary studio, with location shooting in the High River/Okotoks/Millarsville area south and southwest of Calgary, so the temperatures generally aren’t as cold as Edmonton, but even so. It’d be hard to film if your cast, crew, and horses are frozen solid.

10:25 – When a person I respect suggests something, I pay attention. When two people I respect independently suggest the same thing, I really pay attention. So, 18 months ago at my father-in-law’s 90th birthday party, I was chatting with Mary Chervenak about future science kits. Mary suggested we do a biotechnology kit–protein and DNA extraction, digestion, and electrophoresis; DNA transformation into E. coli; bacteriophage propagation; DNA transfection into eukaryotic cells; and so on. Lately, I’ve been talking to Todd Rider, who’s senior scientist at MIT Lincoln Laboratory and on the advisory board for the S.P.A.R.K. competition that we’re entering this month. Todd suggested the same thing Mary had. So I think we’re going to do a biotechnology kit, in addition to or instead of an AP Biology kit. We’ll face some real challenges putting such a kit or kits together, but all of those involve keeping the kit(s) affordable. I’d like to be able to start shipping these kits next year, but it will probably be 2015.