On Friday 19 May, nine students from the Lower Sixth were lucky enough to participate in the Royal Society of Chemistry Schools’ Analyst competition, which was hosted this year by the Abbey. In groups of three, we spent all day working through three rounds of bake off (gone wrong!) themed tasks. These included deducing the makeup of nine (mysteriously unlabeled) white compounds through many different chemical and food tests which were a refreshing recap of both GCSE chemistry and biology. The highlight was definitely the flame tests, with the metals creating red, yellow and lilac flames which lit up the lab! Our groups were made up of a combination of both chemistry and biology students, in order to have a mix of different specialties and skills. 

Next came the titration round, for which we had to figure out the percentage of baking soda in three different samples of cake through neutralising it with acid, which allowed us to figure out (through many calculations) which cakes had been sabotaged! This process is one we were familiar with from our A level chemistry lessons, but was made even more thrilling with the promise of figuring out the mystery. 

After that, came the third and final round. We were given a malicious note from which we had to figure out the saboteur using chromatography and different pen inks. This was done through the painstaking process of extracting the inks and testing their individual solubilties against the ink on the note. 

Finally, we submitted our results for all of these, relieved to have finished and grateful for the challenge. It was the longest practical we have ever performed; however, it was also the most enjoyable. We were competing against teams from Kendrick and Reading School who joined us in the lab. Despite working against each other, this challenge was a great opportunity to mix with other schools in a subject we are all passionate about. 

We are very grateful to the Chemistry department for their time and efforts in preparing and organising this amazing event which can’t have been easy, considering the meticulous detail to which the experiments were arranged as well as the combining of three schools. 

Ira and Emily Lower VI