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chem_mom wrote:Has anyone worked on talc powder? I'm looking for information about the chemical properties of talc. I didn't find anything on the internet and it doesn't seem to react with anything. Thanks!!

To my knowledge, we haven't worked with talc before (my partner's mom provides the powder samples; I don't know what all we've worked with). Not all powders react with everything; the one we got at States was the most boring powder that I had ever used- couldn't dissolve, didn't change colors, etc. etc. I am on R&M, so it seems that I should know about talc, but other than it is the softest R&M around, I'm not positive about anything else.

chem_mom wrote:Has anyone worked on talc powder? I'm looking for information about the chemical properties of talc. I didn't find anything on the internet and it doesn't seem to react with anything. Thanks!!

My partner and I worked with talc a few weeks ago and it didn't react with anything, if I remember right. If you're looking for a powder with some good reactions, I recommend trying Copper Sulfate.

chem_mom wrote:Has anyone worked on talc powder? I'm looking for information about the chemical properties of talc. I didn't find anything on the internet and it doesn't seem to react with anything. Thanks!!

Talc I believe has the chemical formula Mg3Si4O10(OH)2 and a very solid and stable crystal structure. With these two factors I would say that I would expect little reaction with mostly everything

For the competition, will we only be allowed to use one pen?

mathandcheesewhiz wrote:For the competition, will we only be allowed to use one pen?

Yes, I find it best to have one person write while the other experiments

Hey, for those of you who went to Nationals, don't you think there was an unreasonable amount of questions about the containers and starting volumes on the test? We had to miss around 7 questions and fakesolve 2 or so more due to both not getting enough of these types of observations and completely missing the ruler completely (both camouflaged and wedged under the triple beam balance)? Sure, a couple of those were good, but I personally thought there were a few too many. Your opinions?

knittingfrenzy18 wrote:Hey, for those of you who went to Nationals, don't you think there was an unreasonable amount of questions about the containers and starting volumes on the test? We had to miss around 7 questions and fakesolve 2 or so more due to both not getting enough of these types of observations and completely missing the ruler completely (both camouflaged and wedged under the triple beam balance)? Sure, a couple of those were good, but I personally thought there were a few too many. Your opinions?

I agree with you 100%. My partner and I were extremely frustrated by the test. For one thing, it's Nationals. I really wish they would've given us more reagents than the typical HCl, NaOH, water combo. I think what can make this event difficult and actually separates teams is being forced to go quickly and still be accurate. Not to mention there was no thermometer, which is typically one of the harder aspects to get correct. There were far too many initial container questions, as you said. My partner and I somehow managed to miss the graduations that were apparently on the reagent containers despite having measured and examined them, so we were calculating the volume of the entire containers to answer. Not to mention our balance was a bit screwed up, and it took me a bit to get it calibrated. Question wise, the test had too many initial observation questions, and not enough chemistry. I liked the few knowledge based chemistry questions they had, but wish they had more of them and with more variety. Wow, this turned into a lengthy rant. Oh well. I was pretty sure we did terribly, but we still managed to get 6th somehow, so I really shouldn't be complaining but.....I will anyways.

So, after that ridiculously long post, what did you guys think of the Nationals test?

cupcakegirl wrote:

knittingfrenzy18 wrote:Hey, for those of you who went to Nationals, don't you think there was an unreasonable amount of questions about the containers and starting volumes on the test? We had to miss around 7 questions and fakesolve 2 or so more due to both not getting enough of these types of observations and completely missing the ruler completely (both camouflaged and wedged under the triple beam balance)? Sure, a couple of those were good, but I personally thought there were a few too many. Your opinions?

I agree with you 100%. My partner and I were extremely frustrated by the test. For one thing, it's Nationals. I really wish they would've given us more reagents than the typical HCl, NaOH, water combo. I think what can make this event difficult and actually separates teams is being forced to go quickly and still be accurate. Not to mention there was no thermometer, which is typically one of the harder aspects to get correct. There were far too many initial container questions, as you said. My partner and I somehow managed to miss the graduations that were apparently on the reagent containers despite having measured and examined them, so we were calculating the volume of the entire containers to answer. Not to mention our balance was a bit screwed up, and it took me a bit to get it calibrated. Question wise, the test had too many initial observation questions, and not enough chemistry. I liked the few knowledge based chemistry questions they had, but wish they had more of them and with more variety. Wow, this turned into a lengthy rant. Oh well. I was pretty sure we did terribly, but we still managed to get 6th somehow, so I really shouldn't be complaining but.....I will anyways.

So, after that ridiculously long post, what did you guys think of the Nationals test?

They asked what was written on the pen...

Yes, and wasn't that CRAZY?!?!

Seriously, I agree with knittingfrenzy18 (and not just because she's my partner), cupcakegirl, and Gearbox. There were wayyyyyyy to many measurement questions and I felt like overall, the whole thing was too easy. (redundancy) Also, although I was really happy there weren't any other reagents, I walked in kind of expecting there to be a whole bunch or other reagents. You know, it's Nationals! I know they were supposed to ask random questions, but seriously asking what's written on the pen might be a little overboard...? WDYT?

Forever its been like this at Nationals. Like "what number bag did you have" and such. Its kind of ironic its called cant judge a powder, because most of the questions are not about the powder. It should be called "cant make an observation". In the years I have coached this it seems to get farther away from any basic chemistry or physics of solubility and pH...and gets more into what was the volume of the container the powder was in. Just my two cents after 14 years of this.