OK, so I have to write lab report for my Chemistry of Material II class, due tomorrow (Thursday.) Granted, I should have started earlierm in case problems like this arose, but I am still angry about it for a couple reasons.
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The lab was about creating polymers. We did two experiments. In the first, we mixed three chemicals to form a poyester. The type of polyester was never mentioned. To top it off, some groups had different chemicals, resulting in different polyesters. For the lab report, we have to provide balanced chemical equations and product structures. OK, without knowing the end reuslt, that is actually impossible. I can’r predict which of those molocules and elements will be part of the plymer and which will be by-products. A little more informaiton would be helpful. I looked in the book, and found one structure and formula for one type of polyester. I used that formula, but I still had no idea what my by-products there were. And there had to be by-products, since not all of the elements used in the reaction were in the polymer itself. Very frustrating. Again, this problem could have been avoided if I started earlier and was able to go see the TA or prof., but I didn’t excpect to get such little information.
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The other problem…the worse problem. The last quesion in the lab asks us to predict the reaction between one of the chemicals we used in the lab, and another chemical we didn’t. First of, I honestly don’t see how college students that have been in the course for three weeks, and have been on the current topic for a week, can possibly be expected to predict chemical reactions without having even the foggiest idea of what the end result will be, other than that it is a polymer (which, since there are hunderds of, helps not at all.) To top it off, the other chemical that is used in this hypothetical reaciton doesn’t seem to exists. I cannot find any refernece to it in the book for the class, and even a google search revleaed nothing. Npow I am really pissed off. DOn’t ask us to predict reactions with chemicals we can’t find the properties of. Maybe the chemical is in another book…OK, but this class has only one required text book, and it’s not in there. I seriously am wondering who designed this lab and what they were thiking in asking us to do this.
Again, most of this is my own damn fault, but I still feel like pissing and moaning about it.