About the Instrument Designer
Richard served as a Senior Research Scientist for 6 years at Agilent Technologies, a leading global scientific instrumentation company.
Prior to that, Richard taught for 26 years in the School of Chemistry at Monash University, where his research spanned laser spectroscopy, mass spectrometry, and the development of cutting-edge scientific instruments.
He holds a B.Sc. (Hons) from the University of Melbourne and a Ph.D. in Physical Chemistry from Cornell University, followed by several years of postdoctoral research at Stanford University.
Now retired, Richard focuses on designing and building small, innovative instruments. A lifelong advocate for Chemical Education, his mission is to make high-quality instruments affordable and accessible to educators.
Instrumentation is central to scientific discovery, but its high cost often limits its use in schools and universities, where budgets can be tight. This unfortunate reality restricts the scope of experiments that students and educators can conduct. We seek to address this challenge, enabling educators to perform engaging, instrumentation-based laboratory activities that are both educational and thought-provoking, even on limited budgets.
In early 2021, the Raspberry Pi Foundation launched the RPi Pico—a compact microcontroller featuring a powerful 32-bit processor, versatile GPIO pins, and substantial memory, all for just $4 USD. Its impressive capabilities and affordability make the RPi Pico an ideal platform for developing small instruments.
The PicoPol polarimeter is just the beginning. The Instruments4Chem eBay store will offer a series of innovative instruments, including a transmission grating spectrometer, a multi-channel colorimeter, a potentiostat and a trace element electrochemical analyzer—all built using the RPi Pico.
Stay tuned for these exciting developments!
