How To Read This Blog

Funny post? I just did this for fun :)

On the archive on the left, you will see all the posts that I have published. They were recently transfered from my wikispaces blog, so all were done in August. The September post were done recently though. The titles of all the posts have numbers except for the first and this post. Those numbers represent the term in which it was written in. So, as you can see, the term 1 posts are right at the bottom. if you cannot see it, click the drop down button on the August archive. Then you will see it. Thus, you should read from the Self Introduction post and slowly make your way up the whole list of 24 posts (excluding this one). This is how to read the blog. Thank you for visiting.

3: Sabbatical - Friday - Physics

Another day of physics. However, there was no lesson today. We were due to do a presentation and a quiz today, with no practicals. We were brought to the library for 2 hours, until 9.30 to borrow laptops to do the presentation for those who have not started, and to make changes for those ho did something. Then, we went back to the lab and did the quiz. It was done in 15 minutes, and we went for recess. After that, we did some presentations. Nothing much to say. However, after that we watched some videos on science. The videos were quite nice, explaining density and Newton's laws on physics very clearly. That was the end of Science Eureka. It was a fun and enjoyable time throughout the whole sabbatical week. I feel that I have learnt a lot through this sabbatical.

3: Sabbatical - Thursday - Biology

Bio dealt with a lot of food stuff. Favourites? Egg ping pong with rubber bones and DNA of a kiwi. Let's just stick to this 2.

Egg ping pong. We had an unboiled egg, and we put it in vinegar. 2 hours later, the shell dissolved, bubbles were aplenty around the membrane of the egg and it was BoUnCy and translucent. Some group dropped theirs from the table to the floor. BoUnCy it may be, but not unbreakable. The senior cleared up the mess for them. If you hold the egg against the light, you can see the yolk. Quite nice. I knew we could do that, but did not do it until then. The rubber bones had already been done by the seniors. They said it took 1 week. We could bend the bones a lot and it bounced.

DNA of a kiwi. We put it in some liquid called DNA extraction fluid/liquid/solution (one of them). Then, inside some oven, it was put at somewhere between 30 to 50 degrees (can't remember). After we took it out, we filtered it to get just the liquid. Then, we put it into the test tube with ethanol. After a while, there was some mushy stuff floating in it. We took it out and touched it. It felt squishy. It was billions and billions of DNA clumped together, according to the senior.

3: Sabbatical - Wednesday - Chemistry

Today, I feel so honoured. The HSC vice-chairman Nicholas Chuan is teaching me. As you can see from the title, it is another day on chem. However, today was more interesting. It is somewhat a continuation from yesterday. We dealt more with pH, but still did some experiments on chemical reactions. My favourite experiments? Dissapearing ink, rainbow reactions, diffusion in liquids, cool inflation. 4/7 of the experiments. Since there are 4, let's give the other 3 a miss.

Dissapearing ink was made from 0.5ml of ethanol with phenolphthalein mixed with 4.5ml of water, with 1 drop of sodium hydroxide. We smeared it on some fabric, and put ammonia on it. The ammonia was in a fume box. It was quite cool. In the end, after ammonia was applied, the words appeared!

Rainbow reactions was a colourful experiment. 10ml of sodium hydroxide + 15 drops of universal indicator was mixed with 15ml of hydrochloric acid. This mixture was transfered to a burette. 5ml of sodium bicarbonate was added in the burette, and covered fast with para-film. Then, we inverted the burette and saw a rainbow! Fascinating!

Diffusion in liquids was done with three things.

1: lead(ll) nitrate and potassium iodide.

2: copper(ll) sulfate and sodium hydroxide.

3: iron(ll) sulfate and sodium hydroxide.

The first one produce yellow crystals, the second blue crystals while the fourth was a dark green line. The blur crystals were by far the nicest. The yellow ones spoil easily. One shake and the whole solution turns murky with yellow stuff.

Cool inflation was COOL. 2 spatula each of sodium hydrogen carbonate and citric acid was mixed with 25ml of natural indicator. The whole plastic bag inflated and when we touched the solution, it was very cold. Another group added just 10ml of natural indicator and their bag was on the brink of explosion.

3: Sabbatical - Tuesday - Chemistry

On Tuesday, we did chem. We did experiments like crazy, pouring chemicals into another, and we obtained very cool results. My favourite experiment was the electrolysis experiment.

First experiment was on rates of reaction. We had pieces of magnesium, and we cut them up into 8, 4 and 2 pieces, leaving 1 untouched. The, we dropped those pieces into 4 test tubes with sulfuric acid. The one cut into 8 pieces reacted the fastest. As expected.

Next is separation techniques. We investigated on filtration, decanting and centrifugation. To separate sand from water, filtration is the best. The fastest is decanting, but results may be inaccurate. Filtration is the most accurate. Likewise with centrifugation, but it is time consuming.

The next 2 experiments were to do with the reactivity of compounds. We saw a lot of reaction going on, solid-solid, liquid-liquid and liquid-solid. the 5th experiment dealt with buffers. Buffers increase reactivity, so more result is obtained.

ELECTROLYSIS! The seniors placed two chemicals into a petrifying dish and out zinc and copper rods attached to a battery in the solution. Stuff was wormed around those rods. The seniors tried explaining how they were formed. Out of about 20 people, only one understood. He was not me. But, it was still the most interesting experiment, though we did not do it.

3: Sabbatical - Monday - Physics

I joined Science Eureka! this term. I was put into bidding round 2. I forgot to click the 'confirm' button. If I did, I would have only used 1 point to get in instead of 250. Sighs. But anyway, let me talk about the lessons.

On Monday, we learnt physics. I was in the same group as 2 1P2 guys and my classmate Tan Jun Jie. There was very less theory involved in the lessons. Instead, the whole thing was about practical. We made a whole lot of stuff, like parachutes, a bridge and a magnet. Also, we learnt about density through something like a lava lamp, and also of the Doppler Effect. The experiment that I enjoyed most was the bridge and the parachute ones.

In the bridge experiments, ice cream sticks were given to us. We could use glue and string to make a sturdy bridge capable of supporting 2 kg. 2kg with only 15 sticks! I came up with a interlocking design that used the tension of the ice cream sticks to hold itself in place without any glue. Using it would only destroy the structure. However, I only remembered there was strings to be used in the last 5 minutes. The string could have been used to hold the structure together more tightly. Thus, in the end, we lost because of my forgetfulness.

In the parachute experiment, we made a parachute from newspapers and string. I was proud to say that this was my masterpiece again, and we were the best group. Our egg was only briefly scratched because it rolled on the ground after landing safely.

I loved the physics day. The only sad thing was that we had to prepare a PowerPoint on heat transfer to be presented on Friday.