Thursday, 18 October 2012

Largest Piece of Chalk

A big piece of chalk  presented as a gift to the teacher can be a good gifting idea.But what if this  so called good  gifting idea paves way to set a world record.
Terry Dougherty, Matt Durbin and Nick Sylvester, 11th-grade students at Bishop Canevin High School, made a 270 pounds piece of chalk from plaster of Paris and water for their history teacher Joseph Romano.Mr. Romano loved to write  with big pieces of chalk, such as sidewalk chalk, much to the enjoyment of the 11th-grade students
Thus their creation was tipped as the Largest piece of Chalk ever.

Considering the huge size of the chalk it may  become actually tough to make  it write on the board although it can write like any other normal chalk.But however  Mr. Romano had  been breaking off bits from its side, which has diminished the chalk's size a bit.

 A Typical blackboard chalk is manufactured from gypsum, which is a kind of calcium sulfate. Sidewalk chalk is also manufactured from gypsum.The blackboard chalk is made of mostly plaster of paris and water a method conventionally developed by the  Bishop Canevin High School students.
 Nick Sylvester of Kennedy wanted to make the World's Largest piece of chalk in a 32-gallon trash can, and so he purchased enough plaster of Paris to fill the can more than halfway up. He bought 125 pounds of plaster from Home Depot for around $60.
He along with Matt Durbin and Terry Dougherty mixed the plaster of  paris with 14 galloons of water in  a trash can. It took them about 15 minutes to adequately stir the mixture using a golf club and a metal rake, and it took three days before the mixture set in.
The large chalk looks very much  the same as  the normal chalk except for its alarming size.
Mr Romano was too pleased with the generosity of the students to have gifted him his favourite writing tool .The students made the Largest Chalk piece as a jovial gesture to their teacher who they knew had a penchant for big chalks.
So their thoughtful act of gifting the Largest piece of Chalk to Mr Romano not only pleased the later but also fetched them a world record.If that was not enough the students were given 15 to 20 extra credit points by the teacher lauding their efforts  in the process.
The Largest Chalk Piece was set by Bishop Canevin Students at Pittsburg,Pennsylvania,United States of America on June 7,2010.


No comments:

Post a Comment