practical jokes in a science lab

[Astroman 0]

I am just wondeirng,Has any one did any practical jokes or know any good practical jokes to do in a science lab?

[owenluby 1]

Put a pen in a bunsen burner and watch it bend!

You can even mould it to your desired shape!

FUN!

[Sam 163]

Being a former lab technician I would not recommend practical jokes of any kind in a lab. The consequences can be very unfortunate. There is a very good reason that lab rules almost always have a rule against any kind of tom foolery in a lab. Sorry to sound like a party pooper, but its really not worth the risk to you and others to try anything like that.

The experiments you do in class should be much more interesting than that anyway.

What kind of science are you studying?

[marryescher 0]

I work in a lab. Several years ago as a joke, one guy made up a fake Molotov*****tail bomb, for one of the other lab guys to find. Unfortunatly the custodian found it first and called the police. Somehow nobody got fired or arrested. The police came and were questioning everyone. Very stupid.

EDIT: I just dug up the little blip about it in the newspaper crime section in my scrapbook. He did this in the spring of 2003, when 9-11 was still on most everyones mind. I also remember now that he was only one month away from getting his phd when he pulled this stupid prank.

[Barbarossa 51]

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  Edited September 7, 2012 by Barbarossa  

[A Nonny Moose 8,261]

Lab practical jokes are dangerous in the extreme.  Flying glass, for example. 

I have had actual experiments explode on me because I didn't carefully enough exclude the air from my reaction vessel before I started heating what was supposed to be a tube full of Hydrogen and Copper Oxide in a reducing atmosphere experiment.  Fortunately, the tube only cracked and fell on the bench.  Needless to say, I lost my obs to find the formula for water. 

If you are doing this kind of thing, be sure to wear your safety glasses.  Most experiments like this should be done in a hood for safety these days.  In my day, you only used a hood if you were going to generate a noxious gas like Bromine vapor.  For some reason, every time I did an experiment with this stuff I got a really bad head cold if I got the faintest whiff of it.

If you get caught perpetrating hi-jinks in a lab you can be punished all the way from expulsion from the lab course with a fail on the subject to expulsion from the school.

[nottheboss 1]

I think that if you blow your nose off playing in a lab then you deserve no pity

[hym 358]

As everyone has said, practical jokes in the lab is asking for problems.  For those that are interested, and to make this post slightly different from most of the others, these are the basic rules we all were expected to abide by in our general chemistry class.  ("Professor's note" items are things the professor included when discussing the lab rules.)

---

1. Approved eye protection, with side shields, must be worn AT ALL TIMES in the laboratory.  Safety goggles are strongly recommended.  Safety goggles are required with contact lenses.  (Professor's note: You will not be allowed to enter the lab without proper eye protection.  If for some reason you must remove your eye protection, attempt to leave the lab first.)

2. Long hair and/or loose clothing must be confined.  Long sleeves and legged clothing are recommended.  One's legs must be covered to "midcalf."  Shoes with solid uppers are required in the laboratory.  (Professor's note:  If your clothes don't fit the regulations, you will not be allowed to enter the lab.)

3. Consumption of food or beverages is not permitted in the laboratory.  (Professor's note:  Foodstuffs may not be brought into the lab, whether you intend to consume it or not.)

4. Only authorized materials needed for the experiment should be present in the work area of the aisles.  Place backpacks, coats, etc, in the area provided.  (Professor's note:  Keep the work areas clear.  Any number of items you could be carrying could have serious consequences if dropped.)

5. Do not pipet by mouth or make physical contact with the reagents.  Aovid breathing vapors from reactions or open containers.  Use fume hoods if noxious vapors or flammable gases are likely to be evolved in a reaction.

6. Avoid distracting or startling other workers.  Practical jokes, horseplay, and running often lead to accidents and will not be tolerated.  (Professor's note:  Actions like this will result in expulsion from the lab component, failure of the course, and possible expulsion from the university.  In today's post-9/11 world, depending on the jurisdiction, such actions might additionally lead to criminal prosecution.)

7. Never perform any experiment or modify any experiment without the instructor's consent.

8. Before using open flames in the laboratory, remove all open containers of flammable materials and obtain the consent of the instructor.  Never use open flames with diethyl ether vapor in the room.  Extinguish flames as soon as they are no longer needed.

9. Do not dispose of any materials without instruction as to the proper method of disposal.  Never place materials in unmarked containers.  Wastes generated in experiments must be segregated and disposed of according to the direction of the instructor.

10. Identify the position of the nearest fire extinguisher, eyewash and safety shower before beginning an experiment.

11. In the event of a fire, hazardous chemical spill, or accident, notify the instructor at once.  Be prepared to shut down your experiments and evacuate the laboratory in an orderly fashion.

12. Wash your hands with soap and water immediately after the laboratory session is over.

13. Laboratory apparatus, glassware, and/or chemicals may not be removed from the laboratory.

[confused04 14]

It ceases to amaze me that we HAVE to say "no pipetting by mouth." I mean... come on

Thankfully my lab experiments are relatively benign and I have a greater chance of hurting my experiment than vice versa but as people have said, safety comes first. There is enough laughter in the lab from Murphy's law. Thats all I need for entertainment.

[Duke87 1,070]

Playing practical jokes in a chem lab is a bad idea.

Besides, who needs them? You're setting plenty of stuff on fire in there anyway.

I actually had two fire related mishaps in freshman chem. The first was when I gave the bunsen burner too much gas to start with and set the rubber covering of my test tube clamp on fire in the resulting fwoosh. I just blew it out, but damn it stank.

The second was when the flame wasn't getting big enough I accidentally opened the gas valve on the burner too far and had flames shoot out the bottom, right where my hands were. Curiously I suffered no burns form that. After turning off the gas at the main valve, the lab TA came over and asked if I was okay. She also asked why I was smiling and chuckling when I had just almost set myself on fire. Crazy woman obviously didn't understand how guys' minds work.

[fukuda 351]

I still remember what happened in my first chemical enginnering year (well, it was last year )

the classmate sitting at the same table as me said "Let-s see if NaOH is really as burning as they say", and he put his hand inside a pot with a hhighly concentrated NaOh dissolution... Well, he cried of pain all the entire day.. that was smart, yes....

[confused04 14]

I remember when we had to use sand baths to heat solutions in O-chem (orgo) just a few years ago. I had an absolutely brilliant lab partner and she was very intelligent... but this one day she must have missed a few hours of sleep because we were cleaning up and we had JUST disconnected the sandbath from the power source and she tried to take the 200 C sand and MANUALLY remove it from the apparatus. She instantly pulled her hands UP (and not back) and threw this scalding sand STRAIGHT up in the air. Although it was not safe, no one was injured and the idiocy of the situation was just so funny. We left class 20 minutes late because we were laughing to so hard.

[Hahayoudied 3]

I remember this one story that my mom told me. Her class is suppose to disect a chicken one day  when she was in college. Well, my mom made a cut on the chicken with a knife and the chicken panicked and went flying and jumping everywhere in the science room and it was bleeding. Yep, the chicken's blood went flying everywhere in the science room. Moral of this story, never do foolish things.

[hym 358]

Originally posted by: fukuda I still remember what happened in my first chemical enginnering year (well, it was last year )

the classmate sitting at the same table as me said "Let-s see if NaOH is really as burning as they say", and he put his hand inside a pot with a hhighly concentrated NaOh dissolution... Well, he cried of pain all the entire day.. that was smart, yes....quote>

Reminds me the of the time that I spilled a bit of 6M HCl on my hand.  Because it was in a test tube, I couldn't set the thing down, so I had to carry it back to our work station.  It was starting to really sting by the time I had set the thing down and gotten to a sink.

Originally posted by: confused04 I remember when we had to use sand baths to heat solutions in O-chem (orgo) just a few years ago. I had an absolutely brilliant lab partner and she was very intelligent... but this one day she must have missed a few hours of sleep because we were cleaning up and we had JUST disconnected the sandbath from the power source and she tried to take the 200 C sand and MANUALLY remove it from the apparatus. She instantly pulled her hands UP (and not back) and threw this scalding sand STRAIGHT up in the air. Although it was not safe, no one was injured and the idiocy of the situation was just so funny. We left class 20 minutes late because we were laughing to so hard.quote>

During a lab involving heating magnesium oxide in a crucible, a friend of my lab partner's roommate actually attempted to pick up a glowing red crucible with her bare hand.  She dropped the crucible, it shattered, and their entire lab effort went down the tube.

[A Nonny Moose 8,261]

In a chem lab, still in high-school, I had a lab partner who was a bundle of nerves.  One lab we had to do an experiment on miscibility by heating two solutions and mixing them.  When the mixture occurred, a precipitate of hot Potassium Nitrate crystals resulted.  We were to filter this, process it and weigh it.  I was supporting the filter and funnel by hand, and my partner managed to pour this very hot liquid on my hand.  I still have a visible mark on the back of my hand 40+ years later.

[purpledaddy 6]

"You''ll shoot your eye out kid!!!" 

[Duke87 1,070]

Originally posted by: fukuda the classmate sitting at the same table as me said "Let-s see if NaOH is really as burning as they say", and he put his hand inside a pot with a hhighly concentrated NaOh dissolution... Well, he cried of pain all the entire day.. that was smart, yes....quote>

Next time you have lab with this guy, do me a favor:

Encourage him to pour something highly corrosive in his pants. If he does it, it'll be for the better of mankind.

[Hahayoudied 3]

Some kid damaged a dried jelly fish in the microscope 2 months ago. The science teacher told us not to swich to 40x, but that kid swiched the microscope from 10x to 40x.

[bbfan02 23]

Well, kids don't listen. We have an emergency wash system in all of our science rooms. I am very surprised no one has pulled it yet.

[confused04 14]

To be honest, professors hardly listen anyway. I mean, I'm paranoid when it comes to working with Ethidium bromide (binds to DNA and fluoresces for agarose gels; used for genotyping) and its "possibly carcinogenic" and I use gloves etc. In order to view the fluorescence, you have to use a UV-Vis spectrometer. This means you don't want skin or eyes directly exposed to the UV light... for obvious reasons. Anyway, I've had professors refuse to where gloves and spill it on them and turn on the UV-Vis spectrometer without putting down the shield or covering their skin. The number of ignored warnings is rather baffling.

[david1314 44]

Ok, some people need to lighten up... There are plenty of safe pranks (not to mention pranks with safety equipment) in various science labs...

For example (all of these occurred at my school, one of which in the filming of a sci safety video by an AP class):

Students convinced a substitute teacher that the emergency shower was just a relic from the past and no longer contained water. Finally, they also convinced him to test it...Result: 50 gallons of water dump on the floor of the school, students get out of that class for the day, and the substitute was banned from the sci. department. This is both funny and safe.

The AP class filming the safety video coaxed their teacher within about 5 feet of the safety shower. Then two of them bear-hugged her and took her into the red circle while a 3rd came up and pulled the chain. Naturally, this was all caught on the SAFETY video that was and I assume still is shown to all science classes at my high school (this was in 01-02 year).

One of my physics teachers left a charged capacitor in a room that incidentally had nothing but freshman classes and this single physics class. Keeping one locked in a cupboard as a control, the other capacitor was left on the table top with a sign that said 'DO NOT TOUCH' in front of it. The next day, the control capacitor retain a strong charge and sparked readily while the "DO NOT TOUCH" experiment had been discharged. Apparently, some freshman learned the sign was for his benefit, not the benefit of the experiment .

Also, not informing people of the reaction that occurs when an ember is applied to hydrogen gas probably falls in the realm of a 'prank'.

I also had a Purdue chem instructor who in his grad-school years used the Al + Fe reaction to weld the wheels of a trolley to the track while his buddies cause a slight delay up front.

Though, it wasn't a prank, it was extremely funny, I heard from another of the Bio teachers that one of my Biology teachers got to close to a running static generator (one of those large metal globe-looking devices that people touch and their hair stands up). He apparently was grounded on something and got zapped through the zipper of his pants. Fortunately for those of us who have had physics, the further you are from the static generator, the more pain you have when it's grounded and sparks.

Which leads me to the last prank that was played on the class; the teacher, explaining electricity had the class form a chain by holding hands while he brought up the front touching the static generator. He told the last kid in the chain (someone he selected and specifically asked to volunteer) to wait as long as he wanted while the generator was running to ground us all. He waited about 10 seconds and grabbed the sink. About the last 5 people in the chain through their hands up from the shock while the rest of us watched in amusement.

So there are PLENTY of safe pranks in most fields of science...oddly, far more of the pranks came from teachers than students, but pranks nevertheless.

[Goldfish4209 9]

Well, this isn't really a prank, but we were playing with some wires (this is middle school usually boring science) and someone decided to hook up 4 C batteries to a bit of ultra thin wire. The wire heated up and started glowing. Someone got the idea of sticking stuff on it, and by the end of the period we had cut paper, set the paper on fire, and sliced a pen into pieces. It was pretty amusing.

[Hamish 1,369]

I suppose that this is not much of a prank but a very stupid idea from one of the, lets just say he wasn't the brightest spark.

He got hold of the lighter. Now something must have clicked in his mind that if bunsen burners run off gas, then the gas comes from some where. This somewhere was connected to the end of the tube coming out of the bunsen burner. He then removed the tube made sure the gas was running and lit the gas directly from the source. Huge flames came out. The gas was soon switched off.

I don't know if he was expelled or suspended.