Fingerprinting Powders Lab Report
Fingerprinting Powders Prac Write Up- Amy Clark
Aim: To discover which powder works best to take fingerprints on a glass surface.
Hypothesis: The cocoa will work best because we’ve seen it used in lots of tutorials.
Theory:
There are 3 main types of fingerprints. Loops are the most common. They start on one side of the finger and come back around to finish on that side of the finger as well. Around 70% of fingerprints are loops of some type. Whorls are the next most common with around 25% of fingerprints being whorls. A whorl looks like a circle or oval shape which all the other lines go around. The last fingerprint is an arch. Arches start on one side of the finger and go up in the middle before coming back down on the other side. Only 5% of fingerprints are arches, making them the most rare type of fingerprint.
Fingerprinting …show more content…
The cocoa showed the shape of the fingerprint best but the powder went streaky over the lines of the fingerprint when brushed. The talcum powder showed up second best but was also very streaky due to the brush. Calcium carbonate was very hard to see but showed the lines of the fingerprint better than the other two powders tested.
The main problem that caused this experiment to be unsuccessful was that the brush we were using was too hard and bristly, causing the powders to make streaks coving the ridges of the fingerprint and making them unidentifiable. Another problem was that too much of powder was applied whereas after the experiment we found out that we had only needed a small amount.
Some other things to test with this experiment could be more powders on a wider range of surfaces. We also could have used different dusting techniques such as spinning the brush and using the side rather than the end. We also could have done more fingerprints using the same powders to see if we only needed some practice to be
Aim: To discover which powder works best to take fingerprints on a glass surface.
Hypothesis: The cocoa will work best because we’ve seen it used in lots of tutorials.
Theory:
There are 3 main types of fingerprints. Loops are the most common. They start on one side of the finger and come back around to finish on that side of the finger as well. Around 70% of fingerprints are loops of some type. Whorls are the next most common with around 25% of fingerprints being whorls. A whorl looks like a circle or oval shape which all the other lines go around. The last fingerprint is an arch. Arches start on one side of the finger and go up in the middle before coming back down on the other side. Only 5% of fingerprints are arches, making them the most rare type of fingerprint.
Fingerprinting …show more content…
The cocoa showed the shape of the fingerprint best but the powder went streaky over the lines of the fingerprint when brushed. The talcum powder showed up second best but was also very streaky due to the brush. Calcium carbonate was very hard to see but showed the lines of the fingerprint better than the other two powders tested.
The main problem that caused this experiment to be unsuccessful was that the brush we were using was too hard and bristly, causing the powders to make streaks coving the ridges of the fingerprint and making them unidentifiable. Another problem was that too much of powder was applied whereas after the experiment we found out that we had only needed a small amount.
Some other things to test with this experiment could be more powders on a wider range of surfaces. We also could have used different dusting techniques such as spinning the brush and using the side rather than the end. We also could have done more fingerprints using the same powders to see if we only needed some practice to be