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At a tournament, if I am given hair samples in a bag, not in a microscope slide, how should I go about trying to figure out what it is?

AMAZHANG wrote:At a tournament, if I am given hair samples in a bag, not in a microscope slide, how should I go about trying to figure out what it is?

The rules allow competitors to bring microscope slides and cover slips, which mostly indicates that the competitors technically should be making their own slides at competition with the hairs provided (unless given microscope images which is 1000x less fun than actually trying to ID it )

pikachu4919 wrote:

AMAZHANG wrote:At a tournament, if I am given hair samples in a bag, not in a microscope slide, how should I go about trying to figure out what it is?

The rules allow competitors to bring microscope slides and cover slips, which mostly indicates that the competitors technically should be making their own slides at competition with the hairs provided (unless given microscope images which is 1000x less fun than actually trying to ID it )

Ohhh, I see. I was leaning towards that option but since I have to do the analysis, polymers, etc.. I was wondering if there was a quicker way. I guess not lol, thanks so much!

AMAZHANG wrote:

pikachu4919 wrote:

AMAZHANG wrote:At a tournament, if I am given hair samples in a bag, not in a microscope slide, how should I go about trying to figure out what it is?

The rules allow competitors to bring microscope slides and cover slips, which mostly indicates that the competitors technically should be making their own slides at competition with the hairs provided (unless given microscope images which is 1000x less fun than actually trying to ID it )

Ohhh, I see. I was leaning towards that option but since I have to do the analysis, polymers, etc.. I was wondering if there was a quicker way. I guess not lol, thanks so much!

I remember when I competed, by the time I was reaching my third/fourth year competing in forensics, I just accepted that most microscopes are not going to be top-notch and started relying on gut intuition to guess the hairs based on what I knew about the characteristics of the animal it’s a time saver for sure, especially when some other sections are worth more points that you could get more easily

This is a little off topic from the discussion above, but does anyone know where invites get the samples they use in the plastics/polymers section? Like specifically the pellets/beads? We've been trying to look for them for forever lol

alylam wrote:This is a little off topic from the discussion above, but does anyone know where invites get the samples they use in the plastics/polymers section? Like specifically the pellets/beads? We've been trying to look for them for forever lol

I know Ward's Science sells kits specifically for Science Olympiad. Here's the link for Forensics: https://wardsci.com/store/catalog/produ ... 470231-372 It says it includes the polymers in the description. Hope that helps!

Those kits are ripoff for the price, just throwing it out there

AMAZHANG wrote:

alylam wrote:This is a little off topic from the discussion above, but does anyone know where invites get the samples they use in the plastics/polymers section? Like specifically the pellets/beads? We've been trying to look for them for forever lol

I know Ward's Science sells kits specifically for Science Olympiad. Here's the link for Forensics: https://wardsci.com/store/catalog/produ ... 470231-372 It says it includes the polymers in the description. Hope that helps!

The ones in the Ward's Science kits are 2" x 2" cubes tho, not the tiny pellets that you usually see.

Lol Ward's products are kinda overpriced and overrated imo...

pikachu4919 wrote:

AMAZHANG wrote:

alylam wrote:This is a little off topic from the discussion above, but does anyone know where invites get the samples they use in the plastics/polymers section? Like specifically the pellets/beads? We've been trying to look for them for forever lol

I know Ward's Science sells kits specifically for Science Olympiad. Here's the link for Forensics: https://wardsci.com/store/catalog/produ ... 470231-372 It says it includes the polymers in the description. Hope that helps!

The ones in the Ward's Science kits are 2" x 2" cubes tho, not the tiny pellets that you usually see.

Lol Ward's products are kinda overpriced and overrated imo...

Haha I agree about the price, oh I wasn't sure if it was cubes or whatnot. I know my junior high always had the pellets that you would see in competition but I don't know where they're from rip

For seeds and pollen, where do I find information about seeds/pollen from different country regions? They asked a question about this in one of the past invitationals, but I was not able to find information on this anywhere