On Saturday 16th April, after winning the Mid Anglian regional heat of the Royal Society of Chemistry Top of Bench competition in November, a team of four pupils from Oundle School (consisting of Rebecca Siddall (16), Gordon Lin (15), Alice Sze (14) and Polly Brown (14)), represented the region and were placed 4th in the National final of the event at Loughborough University competing against thirty one other regional winners throughout the UK.
The final comprised of a difficult chemistry quiz testing the contestants’ general chemical knowledge and a very tricky practical section where they had to perform a complexometric titration (A2 standard), an experiment involving electrode potentials and finally an exercise building a model of the ethylene diaminetetraacetate ion.
Chemistry teacher, Robin Hammond commented, “All of the activities were of A2 standard or above and the team were highly stretched by these challenges but coped admirably coming a very impressive 4th out of thirty two teams in the final standings. This is all the more impressive because two of the regional heat winning team (James Duckitt (16) and Will Parker Jennings (14) were unable to attend the final and so Rebecca and Polly were called in as very able and worthy replacements. Each team member received a £15 Amazon gift voucher and a certificate for their performance in winning the regional heat and then coming 4th nationally.”
The last section of the day was spent listening to four very interesting presentations from current PhD research projects by Loughborough Chemistry graduates. These included making useful organic compounds from atmospheric carbon dioxide to help reduce the