{"id":28229,"date":"2025-10-22T20:49:36","date_gmt":"2025-10-22T20:49:36","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.macalester.edu\/160-news\/?p=28229"},"modified":"2026-03-10T14:23:38","modified_gmt":"2026-03-10T14:23:38","slug":"chem-student-designs-3d-printed-tool-to-revolutionize-lab-work","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.macalester.edu\/news\/2025\/10\/chem-student-designs-3d-printed-tool-to-revolutionize-lab-work\/","title":{"rendered":"Chem student designs 3D-printed tool to revolutionize lab work"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>By Sia Bombhore <span style=\"font-weight: 400\">\u201929<\/span><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">Ellie Corbett \u201926 never imagined she would be trying to create a new product for performing scientific tests.&nbsp;<\/span><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">A self-described rule follower who likes \u201cto do things very by the books,\u201d Corbett found herself reimagining the organic chemist\u2019s bread and butter\u2014the Thin Layer Chromatography (TLC) technique\u2014when she began teaching it to other students. Taught in nearly every laboratory, TLC is a standard method for checking purity, monitoring reactions, and identifying substances. She saw how each small step\u2014making measurements with this ruler, a lot of transfers with the tweezers, and placing it inside the TLC chamber\u2014became another possibility for error and wasted time.&nbsp;<\/span><\/p>\n\n\n<div class=\"videoWrapper video-wrapper\"><iframe loading=\"lazy\" width=\"560\" height=\"315\" src=\"\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/5S22IZedQ28?rel=0\" frameborder=\"0\" allowfullscreen><\/iframe><\/div>\n\n\n\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">Mentored by chemistry professor Ronald Brisbois, Corbett realized her idea had merit and began turning the identified inefficiencies in TLC into a working prototype. Using CAD design and 3D printing\u2014skills she learned while also helping build the lab\u2019s printer\u2014Corbett\u2019s research brought about a device that eliminates steps and makes measurements more consistent, removing redundancies that often led to mistakes.<\/span><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">The results were immediate\u2014Corbett says that her fellow students were excited when they tried it for the first time, noting how the revised technique saved time, made the process more accurate, and ultimately gave them confidence within their field.<\/span><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">In many ways, her journey exemplifies the power of collaborative research. For Corbett, her mentors\u2019 recognition and guidance bridged the gap between raw potential and making tangible contributions\u2014proving that innovation was always within reach, reserved for neither distant experts nor rule breakers.<\/span><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">And for Corbett, the impact reached far beyond the lab bench. For her, a first-generation college student, the project became proof that she could create something meaningful and lasting.<\/span><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">\u201cI feel like I\u2019m making my family proud, and like I\u2019m making a difference,\u201d she says.<\/span><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>This project was supported by a Mac<a href=\"https:\/\/www.macalester.edu\/entrepreneurship-and-innovation\/macstartups\/\"> <\/a>StartUps<a href=\"https:\/\/www.macalester.edu\/entrepreneurship-and-innovation\/macstartups\/\"> <\/a>grant, <a href=\"https:\/\/www.macalester.edu\/entrepreneurship-and-innovation\/macstartups\/\">Read more about this program<\/a>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><\/p>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Ellie Corbett \u201926 found an unexpected opportunity to reinvent the chemist&#8217;s wheel with the &#8216;Easel&#8217;: a 3D-printed tool she designed as a creative solution to streamline lab work. <\/p>","protected":false},"author":677,"featured_media":28349,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[33],"class_list":["post-28229","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-academics","tag-chemistry","mediatype-articles","mediatype-videos"],"acf":[],"aioseo_notices":[],"fields":{"article_type":[8,2],"flickr_photoset_id":"","youtube_id":"","square_thumbnail":false,"press_photos":false,"story_title":"","story_caption":"","rotations":false,"maps":false,"marker_title":"","marker_text":"","geographic_location":false,"feature_embed":"","custom_link_url":"","news_icon_name":"","image_options":false,"main_feature_story":"","custom_image":false,"custom_feature_title":"","custom_feature_caption":"","custom_markup":"","custom_markup_link":"","custom_markup_title":"","custom_markup_caption":"","byline":"","post_thumbnail_style":"default","press_downloads":false},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.macalester.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/28229","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.macalester.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.macalester.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.macalester.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/677"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.macalester.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=28229"}],"version-history":[{"count":8,"href":"https:\/\/www.macalester.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/28229\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":30343,"href":"https:\/\/www.macalester.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/28229\/revisions\/30343"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.macalester.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/28349"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.macalester.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=28229"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.macalester.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=28229"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.macalester.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=28229"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}