Texas 2011

[2win]

NICE 7Lakes. Represent KatyISD and Texas well, and of course, LASA. x)

Yeah, we appealed Mission Possible too Mimsie, but it got denied.

Write It Do It Odd block got cut 11 mins from building time, and there was a team that talked to each other (the writer and do-er)

[sciencechic]

Awesome job Texas B division....
Riverwood 1st
Beckendorff 2nd
Kealing 3rd.

Some excellent performances!

[Sumire]

First of all Congratulations to LASA and Seven Lakes! Hope you will have a great time at Nationals!
I have a small question:

...
On the other hand, Fossils and Chem lab were ran excellently! I really enjoyed the lab portion in chem lab, it was something I haven't really seen before, so that was fun.

What was the Lab in Chem Lab?

The lab in chem lab was determining an activity series from observations of four unknown metals reacting in their respective solutions. It was a really neat lab from what I saw, though Mimsies was the lab do-er since it was an electrochemistry lab. :P

[Terpsichore]

YAYAYAYAYAYAYAY!!!!!!!!!!! Congratulations to the Seven Lakes team! We've been working REALLY hard this year, and the transformation of this team from even just the beginning of this year to today is outstanding. Someone please tell me anywhere else that can make NATIONALS in just TWO(!) years...cause i can't think of a single place on earth more awesome than 7L although i'm biased... but, WOW i'm so proud!

[chlorine kills]

At c-jap we put more than one observation per line and had to recopy everything!

Optics 1st with brobo.

WCJH only won 3 medals...

[Tidus]

First of all Congratulations to LASA and Seven Lakes! Hope you will have a great time at Nationals!
I have a small question:

...
On the other hand, Fossils and Chem lab were ran excellently! I really enjoyed the lab portion in chem lab, it was something I haven't really seen before, so that was fun.

What was the Lab in Chem Lab?

The lab in chem lab was determining an activity series from observations of four unknown metals reacting in their respective solutions. It was a really neat lab from what I saw, though Mimsies was the lab do-er since it was an electrochemistry lab.

Thanks a lot! I'm from Indiana and had to do this lab already, first I thought it would be kinda fancy. But thanks!

[purplepeopleeater]

Congrats to all esp. Beckendorff (even with a brand new team, we managed to keep a spot at nats!) and 7L!!! and Riverwood, we are glad you guys made it again!
I'm pretty brain dead and trudging through miles of homework at the moment....
but what did you guys think of microbes... >.>
And LASA, congrats to you guys too

[Mimsie]

Thanks a lot! I'm from Indiana and had to do this lab already, first I thought it would be kinda fancy. But thanks!

They gave us 4 metals and the 4 solutions of those metals (We knew which metals corresponded to which solutions, it was given) and then we had to dip each metal into each solution (Haha I didn't notice that we knew which solutions went to which metals XD so I put the metal into it's own solution (DUMB!!! TIME WASTER!!!!) And then from there we had to make observations and determine the activity series (Dude, The second sheet of paper they gave us was a 'COPY' sheet so I accidentally wrote all over it when I had it under my original data sheet. Again, DUMMMMMB). From there, we had to determine the standard reduction potential from 3 given voltages where the most active metal's voltage is set to zero.

It was a fun neat little logics puzzle. (Though I knew my observed data was different from what it was supposed to be because in my calculations from their given voltages from a few of the reactions, I got them out of order. Oops! But oh well )

Congrats to BDJH, RMS, LASA, and everyone from SLHS !

[2win]

(they're RMS, btw, Riverwood Middle School)

Was there a question on the ChemLab test that you thought didn't have enough information to solve though? Because the guy doing ChemLab for us (who is on the Natinal Chemistry Olympiad team or something like that) thought so...

And what was your efficency for the tower, do you know?
How about Cy-Lakes tower effiency?

[Mimsie]

Yeah, that was the lab. Ya'll came to talk to us about that one. I think?

You didn't need the extra information, you just needed to do observations and go from there. The instructions even told you "If you wipe off the metals on paper towels and there is a black residue left over then a reaction has occurred"

And you know from general chemistry that Metals like to oxidize. Therefore, you knew that the metal that reacted the most likes to oxidize the most. The activity series puts the most (For the lack of a better term) oxidizable metals at the top (Such as Li and all of those that are regularly at the BOTTOM of the standard reduction potential table). So all you have to do is put the metal that fizzed in the most solutions at the top and the one that didn't fizz at all on the bottom.

From there, on the table, you know that the most active metal (M5) was at 0. Because they gave you the reactions for 2 of the metals compared to M5 (0), all you had to do was use the 2 values they gave you on the right most of the table (Because you know those two are LESS reactive than M5 they must be closer to the BOTTOM of the SRP table. Then you just add a negative to the front of those two values). Then you take the value of 0.78 they gave you (And because you now know the values from three out of 4 metals, it was just a matter of setting up EoCell = EoRed+EoOx).