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The entire fingerprint exercise serves as a stark illustration of some of the challenges faced by South African Police Service (SAPS) personnel assigned to the Forensic Division with regard to the backlog of cases. The criminal justice system may be put in danger if police detectives are not adequately taught on the mechanics of fingerprint evidence.

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I very much enjoyed doing this activity! Although I struggled and had to do various attempts to get a clear lift, I found the activity very informative.
I attempted to lift a fingerprint of glass with eyeshadow. From the get-go, I could not see where I left the print on the glass and over-dusted it with powder to try to find it.

There were a few other things I struggled with too.

On my first attempt, I used too much powder which made the lift unidentifiable. I wondered if, as the readings suggest, a more fine powder would make it easier.

Furthermore, I did not use gloves when handling the boxing tape and often saw multiple prints in my lift because of this. Also, when I placed the tape with the lifted print on clean white paper, I often had air bubbles trapped which could distort the fingerprint ridges.
The other thing I noticed was that you only get one chance to accurately lift a fingerprint with traditional techniques, and if you use too much powder or contaminate the print you do not get another chance to take the fingerprint again!

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I struggled to get this activity right. It took a few times for me to anything that resembled a fingerprint on my tape. After a few tries, I got it right. But nevertheless it was a fun experience. I noticed that I could see the fingerprint perfectly when dusting powder over it. I realised that it is not the easiest task as you run the risk of ruining the fingerprint if you are not careful enough. I found this activity super fun and interesting.

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What a fun activity.
I constantly laughed at myself because I just couldn't get it right for several times. The print was initially totally invisible but with a few attempts, it became visible. I guess things aren't always what they seem. I thought it's just as easy as brushing one's teeth when in fact it is a tedious task.

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So I struggled with mine but decided to stop and post my attempts anyway in case anybody else was struggling too. I tried both methods and must say that after watching the videos I hadn't thought it would be too difficult but I guess that's the thing with professionals, is that they make things look a lot easier than they are. I actually had multiple prints but these are surprisingly the ones that turned out best. (Each of my attempts to brush away the power completely took away the prints with it.)

It was easy to see the prints on the initial surface whether I coated my finger in powder first or not, but it was the lifting that I really struggled with.

When I was doing the readings I expected a solid print like some of the other ones posted on here. It must be incredibly difficult and stressful trying to lift the perfect print for the examiner at the crime scene.

Still, I enjoyed this task. I used tape, tried several makeup brushes and at first I tried eyeshadow powder but then realised it was too light on the paper, and then switched to charcoal, which was a bit better. I've now got to clean up the mess :')

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This was really fun and interesting!
I tried both techniques. First, coating the fingerprint with cocoa powder and gently brushing the excess powder away with a make up brush. Second, dusting the fingerprint with a make up brush dipped in cocoa powder. The first worked best for me.
I smudged quite a few fingerprints and quickly realised why gently was in bold in the instructions.
Picking the fingerprint up with cellotape proved to be even more tricky but I got one in the end.
Once I took the photo, I played around with the sharpness, brightness, shadows, highlights etc. which was also very interesting.

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This activity was indeed fun and interesting but also quite challenging. My first step was crushing a lump of charcoal and to be honest, that was the most time consuming part of the activity. After a good hour of relentless crushing, I had an evenly fine charcoal powder. I then fluffed up pieces of cotton wool from a couple of earbuds. I was a bit skeptical about this idea but it came out alright. At the end I had a soft and gentle duster, perfect for the job at hand.
I chose my glass chess board as an object to touch with moderately oily and moist fingers due to body lotion. I did press my finger more than a couple of times on the object(on different spots) because I wanted to end up with at least one clear fingerprint amongst a almost a handful of attempts. The fingerprints were already slightly visible even before dusting. While dusting, I was depositing more than enough powder and that seemingly messed up the visual clarity of the first dusted fingerprints. I decided to to go easy with the powder while dusting the third fingerprint and the end product was fairly satisfying. Using the sellotape and lifting the fingerprints to a clean blank A4 page was the easiest and most fulfilling of all steps. I thought I had gone past challenging steps until it was time to take the pictures. I probably took around 10 pictures and only 2 of them were visibly clear.
What I learned from this activity are virtues such as patience, tidiness, vigilance etc, which I think are key in forensics.

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I tried to collect fingerprints using the makeup brush and eyeshadow technique and found it a lot harder than I thought it was going to be. I did find that I got better each time I tried, but I would not say that any of my fingerprints are clear enough.

I had a few issues. The first was that I didn't know what the correct technique was. I found that some of my attempts were ruined by me wiping the print off of the surface, which meant that I could not lift any prints. Secondly, I was unsure whether the materials I used made it more difficult to get a good fingerprint. The last challenge was that even when I thought I was going to lift a clear print, only half of the print was actually visible when placed on the paper.

The activity was a lot of fun, but I also came to understand that there are so many factors to take into consideration when looking for and lifting a print. The task of lifting a fingerprint takes a specific set of skills!

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I found this task fun to do and explained some of the instructions to my flatmate who was watching. Without the correct brush, I could see how the fingerprint did not come out as clearly either time. The second time, however, was much more smudged, with me using too much powder the first time (hence trying again). I also noted that I was a bit unsure of how to properly use the tape without smudging the fingerprint. I also did not properly stick down the tape for the second print as there is a crease at the top. I can understand just how meticulous tasks like these are.

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The experience of taking the fingerprint was interesting. Firstly, it took me many tries as my finger kept slipping since it was oily. I eventually got it right. Ensuring the right amount of the eyeshadow was also a tricky task as it was often forming little blobs. When it came to putting the cellotape on top, the cellotape started smudging the eyeshadow!! I eventually stuck the cellotape on the paper and was I surprised at the print- nothing like I had ever seen :-)