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 414 terms across 10 scientific categories, each with molecular structure rendering where relevant. An educational reference with 91 entries spanning the foundations of science, physical chemistry, biochemistry, microbiology, structural biology, experimental design, and scientific writing. A lab safety section with 20 guides covering handling, spill response, and first aid across five hazard categories. And 45 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. It is hard to find productive ways to put information back into the world. Papers and blog posts are one route, and the app is another. I wrote it, and it reflects how I think about the science.
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.
When Things Go Wrong
Understanding the science is one thing. Knowing what to do when an experiment fails is another. BenchCalc now includes interactive troubleshooting wizards for Cloning, PCR, Restriction Digests, Agarose Gels, Protein Expression, Protein Purification, and SDS-PAGE. The wizards are diagnostic flowcharts that walk you through what went wrong, with real gel images, cross-links to the relevant protocols and calculators, and specific solutions ranked by likelihood. The Bench Guide gives you the foundation. The troubleshooting wizards pick up where the protocols leave off.