Forensics C

[pikachu4919]

Does anyone have helpful information pertaining to the glass analysis portion of this event?

Just know how to interpret fracture patterns and know how to use the density solutions that you use for plastics to identify the glass too, in which you would use their indexes of refraction. See [wiki]http://scioly.org/wiki/index.php/Forensics#Glass[/wiki]

[vxpvm]

How are you guys telling apart sodium bicarbonate vs sodium carbonate, and sodium acetate vs sodium chloride? I tried pH but that doesn't really seem to be very distinctive. Has anybody had luck with NaOH? I can't figure out what we're supposed to do with it, or which compounds are soluble in it and which aren't.

[keke]

Are flame tests or HCl/NaOHtests more helpful when identifying powders?

[iwonder]

Well, so kinda need both. Flame tests only discern certain powders, but HCl/NaOH/Benedicts tests only separate other powders. Probably not what you wanted, but on there own neither are really helpful.

[esola3]

Will we need to know how to do TLC chromatography in addition to paper chromatography?

[iwonder]

I've never seen it used. But we had extra space on out sheets so we added it

[chenyingjie]

Time seems to be one of the most challenging parts in this event. Are there any suggestions about how time should be managed? Thx.

[vxpvm]

Time seems to be one of the most challenging parts in this event. Are there any suggestions about how time should be managed? Thx.

Last year, my partner and I split up the test. My partner was the one who worked on the qualitative analysis part, while I did the written test, and when she was done with the powders, she would come and help me finish whatever stuff I had left. Make sure you know what your priorities are! The summary part is worth 30% of your score, and a lot of teams last year didn't even get to that part.

[labchick]

Time seems to be one of the most challenging parts in this event. Are there any suggestions about how time should be managed? Thx.

Last year, my partner and I split up the test. My partner was the one who worked on the qualitative analysis part, while I did the written test, and when she was done with the powders, she would come and help me finish whatever stuff I had left. Make sure you know what your priorities are! The summary part is worth 30% of your score, and a lot of teams last year didn't even get to that part.

This is about how I split it up with my partner last year (and in previous Crime Busters years as well). It works really well, and sometimes we have time at the end of the test to go over each other's answers etc. We actually printed the rules and assigned one of us to each part e.g QA, bullets, hair, fingerprints, write-up/summary. My only regret is that he chose Forensic Entomology, so it's not worth it for me to spend time learning that although I find it really interesting.

[luvs_science]

What does everyone put on their papers? I have some basic stuff that my teams have used in previous years but would like more information.