• Question: what was your favourite experiment?

    Asked by richieeantonelligiovanni to Niamh, Mark, Kat, Jamie, Jodie on 21 Mar 2011 in Categories: . This question was also asked by lburke20.
    • Photo: Katherine Davies

      Katherine Davies answered on 14 Mar 2011:

      Hi

      My favourite experiment was looking to see if my species of fly (a blue bottle called Calliphora vicina) laid eggs or larvae. For this, I need to trap wild flies attracted to meat but before they had the chance to lay on it.

      So I sat out in the sun in my parents garden, catching flies all day and preserving them in alcohol! Much better than being stuck indoors 🙂

      Kat

    • Photo: Jamie Pringle

      Jamie Pringle answered on 14 Mar 2011:

      Hello richieeantonelligiovanni,

      At school you mean? Definitely chemistry, blowing things up with a bunson burner was great fun! Do you still do those sort of experiments?

    • Photo: Niamh Nic Daeid

      Niamh Nic Daeid answered on 15 Mar 2011:

      Hi Richiee – setting fire to some rooms in buildings to see how the development of the fire affected the electrical current in some wires we had installed. We did 69 of these ‘live burns’ during the experiments.

    • Photo: Mark Hill

      Mark Hill answered on 15 Mar 2011:

      Hi richieeantonelligiovanni,

      Probably my most memorable experiment and most interesting was my ‘A’ level practical exam. I had to make a bromo-ethane compound, although I cannot remember which.

      In the second or third stage, I set up the conical flask on a tripod, with a bunsen burner, set up the condenser and started writing up some notes when… …whoosh.

      Suddenly there was a very pretty blue flame over the ceiling tiles. We all watched for a few seconds until it went out. Note to self – SWITCH ON THE CONDENSER BEFORE STARTING THE BUNSEN BURNER. Don’t ask me how, but I passed my exam! That was my most memorable experiment.

    • Photo: Jodie Dunnett

      Jodie Dunnett answered on 21 Mar 2011:

      In terms of general chemistry, I always enjoyed a good titration experiment but in terms of my own research, I enjoyed actually growing the opium poppies and extracting the resin from the mature seed pods.

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