More Than Calculators:
The Bench Guide

Why I Built This

I wrote the Bench Guide because I think science education too often skips the fundamentals. People learn techniques without understanding the underlying chemistry. They follow protocols without knowing why each step matters. And when something goes wrong, they do not have the foundation to work out what happened, because nobody connected the physical chemistry to the biology for them.

There is no point where chemistry stops and biology begins. It is all the same probability dance at different scales, and understanding that changes how you approach every experiment you run. The Bench Guide is my attempt to provide that foundation, written the way I would explain it to a colleague or a student, not the way a textbook would.

What Is In It

The Bench Guide contains four sections. A glossary with 368 terms across 10 scientific categories, each with molecular structure rendering where relevant. An educational reference with 72 entries spanning physical chemistry, biochemistry, microbiology, structural biology, experimental design, and scientific writing. A lab safety section with 19 guides covering handling, spill response, and first aid across five hazard categories. And 36 practical lab tips covering the techniques you learn from experience that nobody writes in a protocol.

Everything is interconnected. Look up a term in the glossary and you can navigate to the relevant educational content, safety information, or technique tips without leaving the app. The idea is that understanding builds on itself, and the app should make that easy rather than siloing information into disconnected screens.

Written, Not Generated

This is not content scraped from Wikipedia or generated by an AI and pasted into an app. I wrote it, and it reflects how I think about the science. The educational entries build from first principles upward, grounding everything in underlying chemistry and physics before scaling to biology. The scientific writing section covers papers, theses, grants, posters, presentations, and reviewer responses, because knowing how to communicate science is as important as knowing how to do it.

Who It Is For

If you are an undergraduate or early-career researcher, the Bench Guide gives you foundational knowledge that fills the gaps between lectures and lab work. If you are more experienced, it is a quick reference when you need to look something up or refresh a concept mid-experiment. Either way, it is in your pocket, it works offline, and it is written by someone who actually uses this information at the bench.