[VoxAure]

My organic chemistry professor is pregnant and due to have her baby in about a month.

As a little baby shower gift, I'm going to anonymously send her a homemade baby mobile, with chemistry themes!

Here's the design:

• The mobile's truss is shaped like a benzene ring, made out of dowels
• Hanging from each carbon is a wire, on the end of which is a 3" square of acrylic
• Embedded in one edge of each acrylic square is a small blue LED
• Using a dremel, I will score a design into each acrylic square - which will glow!
• Add a switch and potentiometer to dim the LEDs, and hanging assembly

The question is, what designs do I etch onto the acrylic?
I have six squares, and wanted them to look aesthetically pleasing but still form an accurate summary of organic chemistry.

I was thinking Benzene, Cyclohexane, Hexane, Acetone, THF and Ethanol.

Anyone have any suggestions? I can expand this up to 10 pieces if need be, I've got plenty of acrylic to work with! (Attached is a crappy computer-drawn idea of what I want to make)

[Arkcon]

Benzene needs to be there.  Definitely the delocalized electron model --  I'd like to see some simple galvanometric organometallic molecule like CH₃MgBr.  I'm going to stop at 2, other people will have better favorites.

[EDIT] stupid autocorrect ruined a word.

[discodermolide]

Try DNA or RNA, They are the organic basis of life!

[VoxAure]

I had originally thought to include a sugar or amino acid - however remember, these need to be simple structures. I want to be able to etch them into acrylic with a dremel. That means even the simplest sugars and amino acids are right out. DNA and RNA would be a nightmare!

My general thinking is: if I can't draw it in a 3" square with a wide-tip sharpie, it's too complicated and I need to pick something simpler.

[Arkcon]

For a sugar, you can use either fructose or glucose, pictured below.  We depict them as long molecules, but they are actually in their ring form:    You can leave off the letters, its their shapes, with the thicker lower lines to depict that its coming towards us in 3-d, which are iconic.

I'm really glad you've started this thread, this is a nice way to teach total noobs.  I hope you'll keep us up to date on how it goes.

[Arkcon]

Maybe you'd like the Grubb's catalyst, depicted above the arrow.

[VoxAure]

Grubb's catalyst looks like it might be drawable, but I can't recall it being mentioned in class at all... I chose EtOH and Acetone because they were two common solvents that we'd seen all the time in class. Is Grubb's catalyst a reagent used frequently?

I was also wondering if MCPBA would be a good choice...

[Arkcon]

Grubb's Catalyst is a pretty new, pretty advanced reagent.  But as you can see, its easy to dremel.

[Jorriss]

I agree with an above poster - Benzene and a grignard reagent for sure.

Maybe urea for historical reasons.

A molecule synthesized by Robert Woodward, say, Strichnine..?

[nox]

Definitely urea, seeing as it laid the foundation for organic chemistry.

So let's see, so far we have classics (benzene, urea), organometallic reagents (Grignard, Grubbs). I still think it'd be a good idea to have a molecule that symbolizes the organic chemistry of life. Even a DNA base would suffice, say adenine, which is pretty simple structurally.

Perhaps should also throw in palladium tetrakis, since palladium chemistry has become indispensable these days.

[Ligander]

Adamantane?

[VoxAure]

So far I'm thinking these...

Benzene
Acetone
Urea
Grubb's Catalyst
Palladium tetrakis
Adenine

[scienceguy]

methane
acetylene
phenol
ethyl amine
N-bromosuccinimide

representing functional groups and increasing in complexity.

[Raphael]

If you can swing it, cellulose.