Forensics C

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samlan16
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Re: Forensics C

Post by samlan16 »

elizagabito wrote:I need help... I don't know anything that deals with chemistry so I basically don't know anything about this event... Any suggestions on what to study first? Like what are good sites & techniques on studying.
The best way to study for Crime Busters or Forensics is to get your hands on the permitted compounds and run tests on them all before the competition. You learn the lab techniques this way, and if you come across something you don't entirely understand, you can look it up. But start by learning the qualitative stuff first, then learn why it happens. (Also, the chem that you will see on this test up to state is at most reading a mass spectra, IDing chemical structures, and doing a little stoichiometry. Don't be too concerned if it doesn't come easily.)
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Re: Forensics C

Post by Azismith »

I was wondering -- does anyone have a good way (other than the super-subjective 'which bends easier? which scratches easier?) to differentiate between PC and PMMA? Thanks! :)
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Re: Forensics C

Post by samlan16 »

Azismith wrote:I was wondering -- does anyone have a good way (other than the super-subjective 'which bends easier? which scratches easier?) to differentiate between PC and PMMA? Thanks! :)
Density. PC is somewhere between 1.2 and 1.6 g/mL, but PMMA is around 1.16 g/mL. If you are incredibly lucky, they will give you corn syrup to test this in. PMMA floats; PC sinks.
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Re: Forensics C

Post by sciencegeek999 »

Hey guys, I got put in this event, and I've never done it before. Other than the rules, what should I know about it to start off? How do I prepare for it? Thanks in advance.
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Re: Forensics C

Post by pikachu4919 »

samlan16 wrote:
Azismith wrote:I was wondering -- does anyone have a good way (other than the super-subjective 'which bends easier? which scratches easier?) to differentiate between PC and PMMA? Thanks! :)
Density. PC is somewhere between 1.2 and 1.6 g/mL, but PMMA is around 1.16 g/mL. If you are incredibly lucky, they will give you corn syrup to test this in. PMMA floats; PC sinks.
25% NaCl solution should also work since its density is ~1.19 g/ml. The Woz (national forensics supervisor but she also supervises in my state) uses this for that reason.
sciencegeek999 wrote:Hey guys, I got put in this event, and I've never done it before. Other than the rules, what should I know about it to start off? How do I prepare for it? Thanks in advance.
Here's a really good post from a past year's forum for this:
salcedam wrote: What I would recommend is starting right off the bat with learning how to identify the powders since that's a major chunk of the test and subsequently, one of the more important parts of it. For powders, you should have some sort of flowchart in place so as you can sequentially go through different tests (such as solubility, flame colors, HCl reactions, etc.) until you can identify it. For example, to identify boric acid, the only test you need to do for that is to do a flame test because boric acid makes a green flame. LiCl gives off a red flame and KCl gives off a purple flame. Those are the only three powders that will give those distinctive colors. The others will either give you a yellow, orange-ish, or no flame color at all. That's when you need to continue with the next step which would be to determine solubility and so on and so forth.

Then once you have powders down or at least have an idea of how to do them, move to the fibers and plastics and learning to identify those using burn tests (for the fibers in particular since they usually won't allow burn tests for plastics). For plastics, you identify them using densities so you need a flowchart just like for the powders of what to do when one plastic sinks in one solution. So let's say you have a plastic that sinks in water. You know that it must have a higher density so then you test the density using salt water. Different competitions will give different concentrations so you should know the densities of the various concentrations of salt water so that when they give you, let's say, a 10% salt solution and it sinks, you know that it must have a density higher than 1.074 g/mL since that's the density of a 10% salt solution. Then you should test the plastic using corn syrup or some high density liquid to see if it floats or sinks. If it sinks in corn syrup, it has to be PVC (according to the flowchart I've made) and if it floats, it's PETE.

So basically, you need to research flowcharts on powders and plastics as well as learn specific characteristics of fibers such as how they react when burned and how they look. From powders, fibers, and plastics, you move on to everything else. I'd focus less on glass and dirt/tire tracks and such since that's mostly matching. Most tests that I've come across focus mainly on blood, fingerprints, reading mass spec, and the occasional entomology question. When studying those things, you don't need to get too in-depth, but you should go past the surface a little bit. I've had tests where they ask how fingerprints are formed, how many ridges a fingerprint has, things besides matching and identifying fingerprint types. Hope that helps somewhat!
I would add the following to this:
- flame tests can get easily ruined by sodium contamination, so they aren't always 100% reliable unlike solubility, in which it either dissolves or it doesn't and isn't very easily affected by contamination (that's what I recommend should be the first test to use on a flowchart)
- another more feasible difference between PVC and PETE is that PVC gives off a green flame (if provided by the supervisor since burning plastics is not allowed in competition). In fact, if it burns green, it will always be PVC since the other plastics don't give that color.
- glass isn't all matching--you also need to know how to interpret fracture patterns (I've seen questions like that before) aka determining which impacts came first/second, etc.

Be sure to check out the Forensics Wiki for info about important things to know, and feel free to PM me if you'd like since I've done this event for years.
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Re: Forensics C

Post by iwonder »

One thing that I always found helpful for with flame tests is to use new nichrome every time. I know it sounds wasteful, and if you're really careful about cleaning it shouldn't matter, but I had a spool of nichrome wire that I would cut and bend (takes a few seconds) and take those to the contest in a clean paper towel or something disposable. All I had to do was stick one end in a cork and dip the other end in the solution that I had (since I did water solubility before flame tests) and some of the powder if I needed the extra color, and burn it. Then it just goes in the trash. After the initial second or two that nichrome burns the first time, I never had sodium contamination in a flame test (unless I was stupid and forgot to scrub that one spot on the plate or something).
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Mass Spec

Post by _vanemchir_ »

hey guys I'm kinda lost in mass spec. Can anyone explain to me how to analyze a mass spec graph I've looked at several videos on youtube but none seem to be helping :(
Thanks, Vane
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Re: Mass Spec

Post by Skink »

_vanemchir_ wrote:hey guys I'm kinda lost in mass spec. Can anyone explain to me how to analyze a mass spec graph I've looked at several videos on youtube but none seem to be helping :(
Thanks, Vane
I don't have time to prepare a homemade explanation right now myself, but a thought I had was that, in effort to search for mass spec 'in English' that you do a Google search for 'ib mass spectrometer' or equivalent because IB chemistry includes mass spec in the curriculum, whereas AP (far more common in this country as far as I'm aware) does not. I found a couple promising (I mean, compared to some of what is out there) deals on Slideshare as a result of this.

Edit: You could also run a board search here.
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Re: Forensics C

Post by Bozongle »

Just got back from my first full experience of Forensics at competition... and I failed! I was not expecting a full on crime scenario to take up the entire event. I was moreso expecting half exam and half scenario, I guess I was wrong.

I was under pressure the entire time and having 10 bunsen burners on in the room didn't help with the sweating haha. Anyways, it's in the past now so oh well. I had a few issues with solubility. What should be the deciding factor for solubility? I feel like my powder analysis was completely thrown off by me thinking a powder is soluble when it's actually not and vice versa. I saw some solutions where the powder seemed kind of "suspended" in the liquid and others where i thought the powder was soluble but none of my further tests worked. What are your guys' go-to solutions for solubility?
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Re: Forensics C

Post by iwonder »

Bozongle wrote:Just got back from my first full experience of Forensics at competition... and I failed! I was not expecting a full on crime scenario to take up the entire event. I was moreso expecting half exam and half scenario, I guess I was wrong.

I was under pressure the entire time and having 10 bunsen burners on in the room didn't help with the sweating haha. Anyways, it's in the past now so oh well. I had a few issues with solubility. What should be the deciding factor for solubility? I feel like my powder analysis was completely thrown off by me thinking a powder is soluble when it's actually not and vice versa. I saw some solutions where the powder seemed kind of "suspended" in the liquid and others where i thought the powder was soluble but none of my further tests worked. What are your guys' go-to solutions for solubility?
Heh, time is probably the biggest challenge with this event... Just try a lot of practice tests and make sure you can get through the qual fast.

As far as solubility, I think the best advice is to try all the powders by yourself, come up with a really consistent method to test it, and then write down all your own results as you can describe them. It's a lot better than going off of internet descriptions.
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