Can't Judge a Powder B

[sciolyandmathcounts]

And keep your goggles on. The judges DQ'ed 2 teams in 5 minutes at regionals because of that.

[2win]

Oh, and make sure that your lab coats are the correct length and everything... Some team got sent back because they were wearing aprons and the length was too short.

[glaciergary]

Does anyone know where to buy a conductivity tester? We bought a simple one from Flinn Scientific but it seems to be malfunctioning. The LED goes on when the switch is turned on, so it reads conductive in air and even distilled water. IT does get brighter something that is highly conductive.

I see there are some plans for a homemade tester, but we are running out of time. Our state tournament is this coming Saturday.

Coach Vorwald
Paul J Gelinas JHS

[robotman]

Does anyone know where to buy a conductivity tester? We bought a simple one from Flinn Scientific but it seems to be malfunctioning. The LED goes on when the switch is turned on, so it reads conductive in air and even distilled water. IT does get brighter something that is highly conductive.

I see there are some plans for a homemade tester, but we are running out of time. Our state tournament is this coming Saturday.

Coach Vorwald
Paul J Gelinas JHS

The only way i know is ordering one off the internet

[2win]

Oh, we had the exact same one. You put it in distilled water.. if not, make sure the prongs are separate and clean... if not, then try finding another one, like we did.

[glaciergary]

Thanks for those who responded.

I think we are going to try to buy another conductivity meter. After a lot of looking, I found a one at Fisher Science.

It is the RCI Conductivity Tester. They have two versions, a 10 level and a 20 level. They are expensive, and I don't know if I will get it in time for our state tournament, but we can try. We actually have the 20 level one but it no longer works.

There is also a relatively simple way to make your own using a battery, two wires, an LED bulb, a resistor, and a battery terminal connector. These should all be available at a hardware store.

Regards,

Coach Vorwald

[haven chuck]

The PA State CJAP test was one of the most bizzare imaginable. They gave us what I think was copper sulfate (though i could be wrong) as the powder, but the weird part was the materials they gave us-
-Triple Beam Balence
-Beaker
-Thermometer (which they told us not to use...?)
-NaOH
-Distilled Water
-Propane Tank and bunsen burner
-Iron nail in a petri dish
(They also showed us an iron nail that had been soaking in the aqueous solution for 12 hours)

Note: they did not give us HCl.

[ichaelm]

Yeah, that was the same guy that did environmental chemistry for B last year. He had all that weird equipment! So we didn't get to do the obvious stuff, like luster, that we usually do when we don't have so many other tests. We got second though. Congrats to Strath Haven for getting 1st!

[haven chuck]

Thanks! Haha, I remember talking to you right after CJAP in PSL about how insane the Can't Judge test was. Turns out "insane" was a good thing for both of us Congrats on getting 2nd in this, and winning PSL (on that note, your windmill looked spectacular).

[robotman]

How many observations have people been getting?