nerdy chemistry fun

That's right - I put the words "nerdy chemistry" and "fun" together. Here's why: the SU chemistry department is running a small contest, to fill their element wall. If you don't want to click on that link to see what the element wall looks like, picture a display case with small niches arranged in the shape of the periodic table of the elements (one niche per element). In each niche are - or will be, once they fill the thing - examples of things containing the element (a soda can in the Aluminum niche, for example).

The thing's been mostly-empty for at least as long as I've been taking chem classes at SU - possibly even longer - and it drives me nuts every time I walk by it. It shouldn't be so hard to fill it! It's a fun project, thinking up stuff you can cite as uses for various elements. It doesn't even have to be something that actually contains the element - just something that represents something that contains the element (for instance, in the Magnesium niche there's a tiny toy bicycle, representing the Mg used in racing bike frames). The objects just have to be small - no bigger, the contest guidelines point out, than a can of soda.

The fabulous prizes will be awarded by raffle, not by quality of the objects you bring in - so really, if you spin it just right, almost any old thing will do. Do you have a crappy painted ceramic candy dish you got stuck with in a Secret Santa thing one Christmas? Submit it for the Antimony niche, as an example of ceramic glazes! Did your nephew leave a bunch of tiny plastic mementos after his last visit? They'll fill the niche for Carbon, if nothing else! They list potential objects for elements here, tho' they don't mention that many of those niches are at least partially filled - like, someone's already brought in a travel-size bottle of Head & Shoulders for the Selenium niche.

I submitted some dried-up glow-in-the-dark paint I got for 80 cents on clearance at Jo-ann's for Radium. I'm planning to make a list of the things they need most (which I will post here, if anyone is interested), and try to fill as many of those as I can - even if I don't win a prize, just so I can have the obsessive-compulsive satisfaction of helping to fill the display. 'Cause really, the element wall is a neat idea, but right now it just looks kind of sad.

And now - I am off to the chem study session! Because we have a test on Thursday (!) and I can barely remember what an atom is.