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Chemistry Web Competition - 2005/6

To all 2nd year Chemistry and Chemical Physics undergraduates:

The Period between the Last Exam and Getting the Results

This academic year (2005/6) the final 2nd year Chemistry exam is on Tuesday 6th June 2006, and the results will be put on the notice-board on the last day of term, Friday the 23rd June. This gives you over 2 weeks with no apparent timetabled work...

Some of the more observant of you will have noticed in the Yearbook that in June, immediately after your exams, there has been scheduled a 'web project', with details to follow. These have now been finalised and are given below:

Web-based Project Competition

What you'll be asked to do, is write a mini-project in electronic form, i.e. a series of web pages. The project can be about anything you choose, so long as it has some relevance to Chemistry. We're using the term 'chemistry' loosely, to include biochemistry, atmospheric chemistry, chemical physics, materials, geochemistry, etc.

Examples might be:

An interesting molecule, its discovery, history, properties, preparation, etc (for example, see the various Molecule of the Month web pages).
The lifestory of a famous chemist (Curie, Arrhenius, Haber...)
The discovery of and uses for an important chemical reaction.
An important biochemical pathway (e.g. the phosphorus cycle in Nature).
Environmental issues, acid rain, ozone holes, etc.
The history of a part of the chemical industry (rubber, oil, etc)
The discovery of the electron (or proton, neutron)

But please be original. Look and see what's already been done on the web (see links below) and do something different. I don't want 30 projects all about Viagra! (or other 'favourites' like caffeine, or cocaine, or explosives, or fireworks...). If you're unsure, ask me first, and I'll tell you if it sounds like a good topic to do.

Because it'll be web-based, the project should be colourful, lively, and contain many images, diagrams, photos, chemical structures, 3D models (Chime), etc. [Think 'New Scientist' magazine, not Atkins!]. It should be written in plain English, at a level that a typical 6^th form science student might understand. However, the project must be all your own work - plagiarising or copying straight out of textbooks will be inadmissible (and illegal!). But you can 'borrow' gif images and photos from other web sites so long as the source is properly acknowledged (e.g. 'This image was copied from www.xyz.com without permission').

But I don't know how to write web pages?

Part of the reason for doing this project is to give you experience in preparing (scientific/technical) documents in an electronic format, something future employers nowadays regard as an invaluable transferable skill. To help those of you who haven't written web pages before I will be doing a demonstration how-to-do-it 'lecture' at 2pm on June 8th in LT3 in which I'll explain the basics of writing pages for the web using Microsoft Frontpage. I'll also show you how to incorporate images, mpg movies and 3D molecular structures, and tell you more details about the competition rules.

What's in it for me?

This is a competition, and the judges (Dr May and Dr Western) will choose what we consider to be the best 3 projects. The prizes for the winner and runners up are: 1st prize = Ł150, 2nd prize = Ł75, third prize = Ł25.

But it's after the exams - I can't be bothered - I just want to sleep all day!

The project is not like normal coursework...

it should be reasonably interesting to do (after all, you can choose the subject yourself!).
you can do it in your own time, at your own pace (so if you want to spend all day in bed and all night in the pub, you can, but just find a couple of hours somewhere each day to do the work.
you can spend as much (or as little) time on it as you wish. But all projects will appear on the web and stay there for several years. So everyone (including potential employers, and possible final year project supervisors!) can see how much effort you made...or didn't make.
the amount of work requested isn't that much - a couple of hours a day for 10 days will get you a very good project - and you'll still have time to go to the pub, party, go shopping, etc.

So, this project will not only look good on your CV, but give you some very valuable transferrable skills - and it may also get you a cash prize. All the students that did it last year said they enjoyed it, and found it a very worthwhile exercise. Some got offered jobs directly as a result of showing employers their web projects during interview...

Computer Access

The computers in the Chemistry building open-access rooms (West 4) will all be open and available during this time.

Eligibility

Although the competition is intended primarily for 2^nd year chemistry (and chemical physics) undergraduates, who have the 2-week period specifically allocated for this, there is no reason why other students shouldn't be allowed to enter as well. Thus, every Bristol Chemistry undergraduate can enter the competition, but they must write the project in their own time (and not at the expense of their exams!).

Timing

The deadline for submitting the project will be 21st June 2006, and the names of the winners will be announced on the noticeboard (along with the exam results) on June 23rd. Projects should be either emailed to me (paul.may@bris.ac.uk) or given to me on a floppy disk, CD, or memory stick, (with the filename of the first/home page written on front).

Links:

Paul May