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Re: Can't Judge a Powder B
Posted: March 28th, 2010, 5:38 pm
by sciolyandmathcounts
We were never allowed to bring in a note sheet. Just our testing kit. For us, the supervisor(same for both regionals and states), inspected our entire kit to make sure there were no illegal items before we even entered at states and right after we all got settled down during regionals. They gave us an electronic thermometers(a blessing, because I always botch up trying to think how long to wait before reading the thermometer we use to practice), and we had to share de-ionized water with another group. There are scales that show the mass of the powder so you can determine whether it's hygroscopic. At regionals, they wrote the weights on the board but at states we had to look it up ourselves. At regionals, we only got water and the 4 reagents(isopropyl, NaOH, HCL, iodine). But at states we also got calcium nitrate where there were only 2 jars that had to be shared by all 13 teams. Can't Judge A Powder is based a lot on speed and remembering to include everything. Usually you have to include markings on the powder bag(a question at both regionals and states).
Re: Can't Judge a Powder B
Posted: March 28th, 2010, 6:07 pm
by acanoli
sciolyandmathcounts, how do you do hygrocscopy with a balance? Usually we just put a little of the powder on a spot plate and add a drop of water, and see if its absorbed/adsorbed by the powder. Are we doing it wrong?

Also when you say "the 4 reagents," do you mean all of those are required? Because i think my rules might have been outdated. Ours say only H2O and HCl are required, but they can give you anything else if they want, if i'm remembering correctly. Was it just a coincidence that you got all 4 of those at both competitions?
Re: Can't Judge a Powder B
Posted: March 29th, 2010, 1:07 pm
by sciolympian
in our states they gave us a powder, NaoH, HCI, and distilled water. using the materials we brought, we made observations on the powder and its reactions with other reagents, and then we answered the question sheet using only the observations we made (they were written). my team placed 15th. by the way, they gave us a green pen for observations and a red pen for the question sheet.

Re: Can't Judge a Powder B
Posted: March 29th, 2010, 1:07 pm
by sciolympian
the test was pretty hard... i think there was stuff about ionic and covalent compounds.... some stuff about reactions between the reagents and the powder... the other stuff i can't remember.

Re: Can't Judge a Powder B
Posted: March 29th, 2010, 1:08 pm
by sciolympian
we placed 15th.
is a 15th ranking out of 50 teams...
pick one:

(excellent)

(very good)

(good)

(okay)

(bad)

(very bad)

(shocking)
Re: Can't Judge a Powder B
Posted: March 29th, 2010, 1:11 pm
by sciolympian
is a 15th ranking out of 50 teams...
pick one:

(excellent)

(very good)

(good)

(okay)

(bad)

(very bad)

(shocking)
how do i delete this post?
Re: Can't Judge a Powder B
Posted: March 29th, 2010, 5:49 pm
by zyzzyva980
Is the quadruple post absolutely necessary?
Re: Can't Judge a Powder B
Posted: March 30th, 2010, 1:55 pm
by sciolympian
zyzzyva98 wrote:Is the quadruple post absolutely necessary?
i'll tell you why its a quadruple post when you answer the 4th post.

Re: Can't Judge a Powder B
Posted: March 30th, 2010, 2:03 pm
by EastStroudsburg13
You could just edit your previous posts or something like that. And only one of them is a question, so it didn't sound like you wanted an answer for the three ones that came previously. So I agree with zyzzyva in that you could have posted that in at most 2 posts, preferably one.
Re: Can't Judge a Powder B
Posted: March 31st, 2010, 1:13 pm
by sciolyandmathcounts
acanoli wrote:sciolyandmathcounts, how do you do hygrocscopy with a balance? Usually we just put a little of the powder on a spot plate and add a drop of water, and see if its absorbed/adsorbed by the powder. Are we doing it wrong?

Also when you say "the 4 reagents," do you mean all of those are required? Because i think my rules might have been outdated. Ours say only H2O and HCl are required, but they can give you anything else if they want, if i'm remembering correctly. Was it just a coincidence that you got all 4 of those at both competitions?
Oh, I meant, does it lose moisture to air, not water. Oops.