Titration: to ascertain the quantity of a given constituent by adding a liquid reagent of known strength and measuring the volume necessary to convert the constituent to another form.
We had to titrate standardized HCl against NaOH, then use the NaOH to work out the concentration of 3 different acetic acids.You probably don't understand what I'm saying if you don't understand chemistry. Noob.
Anyway, I was part of the team competing representing the school, competing against other schools in the state. We had little time for preparation or practise: we literally signed up the day the competition was on. Then we strolled in 5min late because I insisted on eating all my food (slowly) before we went there. On arrival we saw all these private school kids in their custom-made lab coats, with their own logos and team names etc. I wore a borrowed lab coat that was splashed with colored chemicals. Shabby public school kids ftw.
...Aaaaand of course we didn't win. Don't think anyone expected it though. We made it into the finals, and I'm happy enough about that. We were quite close to the actual value... it's just that we weren't close enough. Oh well. I thought it was a game of chance, anyway. We had to use the 4th decimal place. I messed up with the phenolphthalein, and my darker solutions used less NaOH than my lighter ones.
Then the competition was finally over, and we were invited to a supper. That was like 1/2 the reason I went to the competition in the first place. Food was good, I burnt my fingers grabbing it, shoved people out of the way to reach the plate, and took like a massive handful when I got there when everyone else was taking just one piece. I guess I'm a massive scrub.
In the end the results were announced, and ironically we beat most of those fancy private schools. My team ended up outside on a court, dancing in the middle of the night and blasting shitty pop music. I think we were happy about how we didn't completely fail.
Good times.
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