Great Scot - The Scotch Family Magazine - Issue 151 September 2017 GreatScot_Internal_Sept_2017_FA | Page 42

Senior School
Great insights into
scientific research
Each year our boys have the opportunity to visit
local centres which excel in scientific research. On
27 March, six Year 11 boys, accompanied by Dr
Atit Bhargava and Mr Nick Lelekakis, visited RMIT
University’s Micro Nano Research Facility in the
city. This is one of the finest ‘clean room’ facilities
in the world, and certainly the only one of its kind in
Australia.
The group was hosted by Associate Professor
Sharath Sriram, who is the Scientific Coordinator
of the facility. Professor Sriram has won numerous
awards in the area of nano materials, including
the 2016 3M Eureka Prize for Emerging Leader in
Science.
The group changed into protective clothing to
protect the equipment and processes, and saw
a range of scientific instruments used in nano
materials, including nano-3D printers, clean room
facilities, Atomic Force Microscopy and ion beam
implantation.
As a follow-up, the same six Year 11 boys
will have an opportunity to spend a full day in
hands-on training on the sophisticated equipment
in the laboratory. This is a rare and highly technical
activity that only our best students can handle,
and we are hoping to avail of this offer during
December.
On 26 April, Dr Atit Bhargava and Mr Frank
Augello accompanied s even boys from Year 9
science challenge classes on a visit to the St
Vincent’s Institute of Medical Research (SVI) . This
visit is now an annual event.
Professor Tom Kay (’73) hosted the boys,
and outlined the place of SVI in medical research being carried out in Melbourne. The boys visited
the SVI laboratories, and learned about 3-D
crystallography and drug discovery, protein
chemistry and mass spectroscopy, and bone
cell biology and disease. Once again we were
delighted to visualise the 3-D structure of proteins,
explained vividly by Dr Craig Morton (‘84) with the
use of 3-D glasses.
DR ATIT BHARGAVA – SCIENCE
AMBASSADOR
winning team was the one which came closest to the
correct answers; in other words, the team for which
the aggregate error was least.
The following Scotch chemists (listed in their
teams) participated in the competition: Angus Currie,
William Wang and Justin Yang (this team qualified
for the national final); Thomas Braddy, Morris Gu
and Jason Zhao (also qualified for the final); Edward Buckland, Harith Perera and Joe Xing; Owen
Brooks, Charley Ma and Tony Jiang; Edward Jiang,
Angus Ritchie and William Sutherland; Patrick Miao,
Daniel Qin and Tian Tian Lan.
Congratulations to all our participants in the
titration competition.
DR JOHN JACKOWSKI – HEAD OF
CHEMISTRY
Titrating a solution
to the ‘Vinegar and
Sauce Company’s’
problems
Two Scotch teams have qualified for the finals
of the Royal Australian Chemical Institute’s national
titration competition, after participating in the RACI
(Victorian branch) titration competition in June.
In all, 18 Year 12 Scotch boys, divided into
six teams of three each, participated in the
competition, which attracted school teams from all
around Victoria.
The scenario set for participants involved
the mythical ‘Vinegar and Sauce Company’,
which found itself in something of a pickle. The
company needed to know the concentration of
three samples of ethanoic acid, commonly known
as acetic acid or vinegar, labelled A, B and C,
for a new range of products it was developing.
School students participating in this year’s titration
competition were being asked to help.
Each student performed around six titrations;
three to standardise their hydrochloric acid
solution, and at least three to determine the
concentration of the unknown ethanoic acid. The
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Great Scot Number 151 – September 2017