Benjamin Deadman, Facility Manager, Centre for Rapid Online Analysis of Reactions (ROAR), Imperial College London
Volker Kraft, Senior Academic Ambassador, JMP Academic Program
Since 2018 the Centre for Rapid Online Analysis of Reactions (ROAR), in partnership with JMP, has trained more than 200 chemists and engineers in using Design of Experiments (DOE) for research. During this time, annual workshops have evolved to give new users an accessible, educational, and exciting introduction to DOE. This presentation will discuss the evolution of ROAR training workshops, some lessons learned along the way, and ways role-playing activities allow small groups to experiment with different DOE strategies in the classroom. Our role-playing activity places students in a small contract research organization. It tasks them with improving the outcome of a key reaction step in their client’s production of a target molecule. The activity allows them to apply their DOE knowledge and skills throughout the process, from problem definition and evaluation of different design strategies to proposing an optimized solution. Synthetic generation of data allows the students to get immediate feedback on their experiment designs. Random noise and blocking elements are included to give them an experience resembling the challenges of real physical experimentation with DOE.
