Royal Society of Chemistry’s Top of the Bench Challenge
Sirius Academy North entered two teams into this year’s prestigious Royal Society of Chemistry’s Top of the Bench Challenge. They were tasked with creating an iodine clock which turned black at exactly 180 seconds. They were not told the names of each reagent (only that some were more important than others) and had to think logically and act methodically through experimentation to achieve the target time. On the final practice run, one team achieved a fantastic time of 180.2 seconds. However, when it came to judging, the best time achieved by either team was 170 seconds, which came in a respectable 6th out of 20 teams.
Even though victory was snatched away from SAN at the final hurdle, the thrill of experimenting in the university’s chemistry labs is an experience they will never forget!
