Crime Busters

Description
Students will identify perpetrators of a certain crime by using fiber or hair identification, analyzing shoeprints, tiretreads, paper chromatography, and fingerprints. Students will also be asked to identify different powders, metals, and liquids by performing multiple tests.

Survival Kit
Every team must bring a bunch of stuff in order just to get into the testing room. The team must have:


 * Lab aprons or coats
 * Splash Goggles
 * Pencils (NOT PENS, you will most likely make mistakes)

Also, the team should have the following:
 * Standard sheet of paper (both sides) with handwritten notes on anything involved with the event!!!
 * Extra pencil for chromatography
 * Paper Towels
 * Magnet
 * Microscope Slides
 * TESTING TRAYS!!
 * PH paper
 * Wood Splints (Make sure you have extra)

The supervisor will provide everything you need, so if you bring it you will be penalized

Before the competition (at school practices)
Check with your SO Coach to get the following materials to test: Sodium Acetate, White Sand, Calcium Carbonate, Vitamin C, Table Salt, Sugar, Flour, Cornstarch, Gypsum, Baking Soda, Powdered Gelatin, Powdered Alka-Seltzer, Yeast (the bold items will be used in mixtures at the competition); Aluminium, Copper,Iron, Tin, Zinc, and Magnesium; Lemon Juice, Rubbing Alcohol, Household Ammonia, Water, Vinegar, Hydrogen Peroxide. in, Zinc, and Magnesium; Lemon Juice, Rubbing Alcohol, Household Ammonia, Water, Vinegar, Hydrogen Peroxide. The coach will also need a dropper bottle of 3M HCl and Iodine, pH or Litmus paper, 15-20 containers for testing, 15-20 unknowns, a Magnet, Wood Splints or plastic spoons, a container of Water, an eye dropper, a hand lens, and chromatography materials.

Make a chart for testing. For Powders, include color, reactions with water, HCl, and Iodine; Smell (distinct, faint, or none); Crystal shape (if any), whether it dissolves or not, and reaction to pH or Litmus paper. For metals, include reactions to water and HCl and Magnetic property (yes or no). For Liquids, include smell, reactions to pH or litmus, and color. With your teammate, memorize the results (this is where two heads are better than one) and try testing unknowns made by the coach or other team members. If you can do this, it helps very much when it comes time for the competition. After you do that, learn how to identify fibers/hairs using a hand lens.

Chromatography
This is very easy to do. You put a dot of ink on a 6" by 1" piece of white construction paper. Then, get a small cup of water and put the paper on the cup just so that the ink dot is above the water line. Wait for the colors to separate and that's it! You'd be surprised by the difference in black ballpoint pens, magic marker, and dry erase pen.

Fingerprints
Practice identifying and comparing fingerprints it's super easy. There are 3 types of fingerprints(arches, loops,and whorls) they are easaly identifided by there genreal shape and number of deltas (triangles made from ridges) arches= a hill shape with no deltas loops= a beanish shape with one delta whorls= a circle like shape with two deltas

Polymers
These are ify, somtimes they're in a compition somtimes not but if I remember correctly you have to know PETE,HDPE,PVC,LDPE,PP,PS I think that HDPE,LDPE,and PP float in water while PETE,PVC,and PS do not. This means that the first group has a density less then one and the second group more then one(but to be honest PS AKA styrofoam was so close to the density of water it floated a couple of times i tested it. To identify the polymers in the first group is easy HDPE and LDPE are translucent while PP is not. HDPE is relativly more translucent then LDPE. Identifiying in the second group isnt all that hard eather PS will SLOWLY drop down in water or half of the flecks will sink while the other will float. PVC is somtimes rubbery but never tranperent while PETE is CLEAR!!!

At the Competition
Once you get your materials and the supervisor starts the competition, start by getting your chromatography paper started. Then, look at the test and see how long you think it will take or how much there is to do. If it is a lot, make sure you split up the work because you don't want to have wasted potential and then not finish. While the is going, identify all the unknowns using tests (see above). Please note that at higher levels of the tournament (state, nationals) different compounds may be combined with each other. For example, flour and alka seltzer. While one person is testing unknowns, the other might want to identify the fiber samples (if there is any). After all the unknowns are identified, read through your packet to learn about the crime scene and answer the questions. Then, after questions have been answered, write out the crime solution essay, discussing how the team chose the culprit(s), based on their motive and supporting evidence (the unknowns the person was carrying compared to the substances found at the crime scene). Following the supervisor's instructions, hand in your papers, clean up your lab area, and relax until the supervisor dismisses you.

Scoring
The scoring is composed of these elements:


 * Unknowns Identification (50% of total score)


 * Chromatography (5%)


 * Crime Solution Essay (25%) (tiebreaker)


 * Plastics and fibers (10%)


 * DNA, finger printing, tire treads, finger prints, shoe prints (10%)