Your own page¶
Mine in the top bar gathers everything that concerns you personally. The number beside it counts what is new since you last looked.
Sections can be folded away, and the app remembers which ones you keep open.
What I have out¶
The equipment currently checked out to you, with the room it went to, the day it left, the day it is due, and the experiment it belongs to where it belongs to one. Each row has a Check back in button, so returning several items takes one visit rather than one page each.
The due … marker on a row is a link: it opens the date so you can push it out without bringing the equipment back first. See Taking equipment out and bringing it back for what may go in it and who else may change it.
Anything overdue is called out at the top of the section.
Experiments¶
Nobody does much with one piece of equipment. An experiment groups what one job needs — three accelerometers, a chassis, a module, a force sensor — under one set of dates and one room, so those are answered once rather than once per item.
New experiment starts one. Give it a name, the days it runs and the room its equipment goes to; the room is a default and every checkout can still differ. If you supervise anybody, you can start one for them, exactly as you can take equipment out for them: it is theirs, and the record says you set it up.
Opening an experiment shows its plan. Say what it needs by category and how many — three accelerometers — and each one becomes its own line, so you can pick a different sensor for each. Choose one takes you to the equipment list with that category already selected; picking one fills in that line.
Important
Choosing claims it. What the claim is depends on when the experiment runs:
Window still ahead — the item is booked for the experiment’s days, exactly as Book it for a later day books it from its own page. The booking appears under the experiment’s name in Booked for later and on the item’s calendar; it holds nothing off the shelf today, and it is collected as a batch when the window opens.
Window running — the item is checked out on the spot, to the experiment’s room and due back on its end date. If somebody already has it, you are told at choosing time — while there is still time to choose differently.
Another lab’s equipment, window running — the choice is recorded and waits for their blessing. Nothing is emailed per item: Ask for all 3 on the experiment page files the lot at once, and each owning lab gets one email listing what you want.
Picking the wrong sensor is fixed by choosing again — a booked claim moves to the new item; something already out goes back first. Remove takes away the last thing added: on a chosen line it removes the choice and the line stays, still asking for its category; a bare line is removed outright. While an item is out, the row offers Check back in instead — returning it is the only thing left to do to it from here.
Taking it all out¶
When the campaign starts, Take out all 6 checks out everything the plan has chosen — its bookings become loans, in one act, to the experiment’s room and due back on its end date. Take it out on a single line does the same for that one item. For a different room, a different date, or to record it against somebody else, open the item’s own page instead — its name on that line is a link to it. Each item is checked out exactly as it would be from its own page — the same history line, the same emails, the same question asked of the other lab where one is involved.
Anything somebody else has already taken is skipped and named rather than seized, and one refusal does not stop the rest: five items go out and the sixth tells you why it did not.
Something you already have out joins the experiment rather than being refused. Taking a sensor out on Monday and building the experiment around it on Tuesday is the ordinary way this happens; the loan keeps going, gains the experiment, and takes its end date. The room is left as it was — that says where the equipment physically is, and the app has no way of knowing you have carried it anywhere — but you are told when it differs from the experiment’s room, so you can correct it on the item’s page. Equipment taken under an experiment appears in What I have out like anything else, and its page says which experiment it went out under.
Bring back all 6 at the end returns everything still out under the experiment. Loans it did not produce are left alone.
Taking things out into it, one at a time¶
Every checkout form has a Part of an experiment? field, just under “who is taking it”. Leave it empty and nothing changes; pick an experiment and the loan belongs to it, appears in its plan, and shows up on Mine with the experiment’s name beside it. Choosing one also fills in its room and its end date — you can still change either, which is the point of them being fields rather than facts.
That is the whole mechanism, and it works from any item’s page at any time. You do not have to be scanning, and there is no separate button that does the same thing differently.
Setting up at a shelf. Check items out into it on the experiment page saves you answering that field once per item: it pre-selects the experiment for the next couple of hours, so you scan each code, glance at the form, and press the button. A banner across the top of every page says which experiment is pre-selected, with an × to end it.
Note
A QR sticker is permanent and carries one address and nothing else, so the code itself cannot know about your experiment — your browser does. That makes it per device: two people setting up out of the same experiment at once do not interfere with each other.
It also switches itself off: after two hours, when you log out, or when the experiment is archived. And it never takes anything out on its own — it fills in a dropdown, which you can change or empty on any checkout. A pre-selection you forgot about costs you a glance at a filled-in field, not a loan you did not mean to take.
Changing the dates¶
Editing the end date moves it on every loan still open under the experiment. A campaign that runs a week over is one edit rather than six people each pushing their own date out. Loans already returned keep the date they actually had.
Finishing with it¶
Archive puts a finished project away without destroying it — its plan stays, so next year’s run of the same measurement starts from this one rather than from a blank page. It is refused while anything is still out, since a finished project holding six items is not finished.
Delete destroys the plan and asks you to type the name to confirm it. It does not return anything: equipment already checked out stays exactly where it is and simply stops naming the experiment. The page says how many loans that will be before you do it.
Notices¶
Things that happened to you rather than things you did:
a mentor checked equipment out in your name;
one of your students took something out or brought it back;
another lab answered a borrowing request, either way.
New entries are marked, and looking at the page clears the mark.
What I have asked another lab for¶
Your outstanding cross-lab requests, showing which lab was asked and when.
waiting for an answer means it has not been decided yet; you may take it
means it has been granted and the item is yours to check out.
Booked for later¶
Your bookings, with Collect it to turn one into a checkout and Cancel to withdraw it.
My students¶
Mentors only. What the people they supervise are holding and planning, grouped per student, with anything overdue marked. Check in for them returns an item on a student’s behalf.
Their experiments are listed in the same block. A student who has planned something but taken nothing out still appears — that is a plan being made, and it is the point at which saying something about it is still useful.
Preferences¶
Two settings:
- Email me a weekly reminder of what I have out
On by default. Only ever sent when you are actually holding something.
- Default checkout location
The room pre-selected on every checkout form. Most people use the same room every time, and the point of scanning a label is that borrowing takes one tap. The Change my usual location link on the checkout form comes straight here.