St George's retain RSC Belgium TOTB trophy

Despite the challenges and restrictions due to COVID, RSC Belgium successfully organised and ran its annual 'international eliminator' for the Royal Society of Chemistry's Top of the Bench (TOTB) competition in 2020 - and the results are now in. This year, the competition was run remotely during late November and early December with the results evaluated over the Christmas holiday period. The winning team, who will now represent Belgium in the TOTB grand final in March, is Team Phosphorus from St. Georges International School in Luxembourg. The school therefore retains the Keith Price Cup as their Team Sulfur was Belgium's TOTB winners in 2019.

Our 2020 TOTB eliminator retained the usual elements of the competition: a written test component for individual team members and a practical group exercise. Also as usual the questions were set by RSC committee member Rita Woodward.

TOTB teams need to be composed of four students with two students from Year 9 (UK equivalent to 3rd year or Grade 8), one student from Year 10 UK (4th year or Grade 9) and one student from Year 11 (5th year or Grade 10). With COVID restrictions/ bubbles this added an extra complication to the event.

The competition itself was managed remotely by the participating schools and consisted of a Multiple-Choice ‘Written’ Section, with questions and marking schemes tailored to the three age groups that was delivered in an appropriate 'timed' manner at the schools and a practical element with input from all four team members. The practical task for 2020 was to construct a calibration graph and use it to determine the percentage of baking soda (bicarbonate of soda) present in a commercially produced baking powder. Practical kits were sent to participating schools.

Challenging event

In the end four teams from two schools were able to complete and return a full set of results for evaluation. The participating teams were teams Barium and Nitrogen from the International School of Flanders (ISF) in Waterloo and teams Magnesium and Phosphorus from St. George's International School in Luxembourg.

The competition was close but the overall winner - ranked first in the practical test and second in the written test - was the Phosphorus team from Luxembourg.

Our congratulations to Team Phosphorus and our thanks to everyone who took part in the TOTB eliminator this year. RSC goodies are on the way to participants at ISF and St. George's. Thanks to St. George's for providing photos from their eliminator.