The team of lower sixth students was made up from three outstanding candidates from the first year Chemistry course, Aimie Bowles, Christina Long and Tom Waite, who were ready to go head to head with 23 other schools and colleges from the Manchester area in a series of analytical practicals in the high spec. university labs.An early registration at the University and a brief introductory talk from the organisers gave our intrepid trio a chance to weigh up the opposition, mainly consisting of local rivals and be-suited public schoolboys, after which they were whisked off to the labs to pit themselves against some of the greatest chemical minds in the North West. Mr Smith retired to the pub.
What followed was a whirlwind of analytical procedures, including titrations with multiple indicators, flame photometry, infra red spectroscopy and other qualitative testing for dissolved ions.
Despite a late wobble with one of the simpler ion identifications, their analytical work had clearly caught the eye of the marking committee, with the University judges awarding them a score of 71 out of a possible 100, good enough for a clear 3rd place overall and a gift voucher which more than covered their lunchtime visit to Aimie's second home, Nandos. Rumours of a rival school being thrown out of the competition for fielding a candidate clearly on performance enhancing hormone replacement therapy were reported to be wide of the mark.
