The Project
In this project, we were supposed to make a board game and present it to families and judges at a game night. The game had some requirements that had to be met. We needed to incorporate a single replacement, double replacement, a synthesis reaction, light up an LED and also produce a gas. We decided to create and base our board off of battleship and ended up naming it Battle-Chem. In our game, the players would put down their ships onto the board in front of them. Our board was a 5x5 grid and we had 2 ships that were 4 squares long, 2 ships that were 3 squares and, one 2 square ship. In each of these ships were different solutions. To destroy each ship you had to use a different solution for each one. These solutions would cover our double replacements and would turn the squares that you hit into a red precipitate.
Instructions
Reactions
The Ships
Safety Guidelines
Key Concepts
During the course of this project, there was a few recurring themes and a few new concepts that we needed to combine into one fluent board game. The main concepts are below:
Single Replacement: A reaction in which a monoatomic cation swaps with the cation in a polyatomic compound as long as the monoatomic cation is higher on the reactivity series. This was seen when we mixed the nitric acid and the zinc. This was our production of a gas where the zinc bubbled and fizzed in the nitric acid.
Double Replacement: A reaction in which two compounds exchange their cations and anions. This was seen in the different shots on the ships. Each shot would react with the type of ship to see if you had a hit or not.
Synthesis: A reaction where two monoatomic ions combine to form a polyatomic compound. This was seen when we burned our magnesium and it mixes with the oxygen in the air to form magnesium oxide.
Reactants: Reactants are the chemicals that react in a chemical reaction
Product: The product or products are the chemicals that our produced by the reactants in the chemical reaction.
Single Replacement: A reaction in which a monoatomic cation swaps with the cation in a polyatomic compound as long as the monoatomic cation is higher on the reactivity series. This was seen when we mixed the nitric acid and the zinc. This was our production of a gas where the zinc bubbled and fizzed in the nitric acid.
Double Replacement: A reaction in which two compounds exchange their cations and anions. This was seen in the different shots on the ships. Each shot would react with the type of ship to see if you had a hit or not.
Synthesis: A reaction where two monoatomic ions combine to form a polyatomic compound. This was seen when we burned our magnesium and it mixes with the oxygen in the air to form magnesium oxide.
Reactants: Reactants are the chemicals that react in a chemical reaction
Product: The product or products are the chemicals that our produced by the reactants in the chemical reaction.
Reflection
With this being the first project for a while for us in STEM, we had a few tough moments, but we also had some great moments as well. I learned a lot throughout this project. Among the things I learned, what stood out to me was how much better I became at handling all the chemicals. At the beginning of the project, I was not very careful or precise in what I was doing but by the end I felt very comfortable in using the chemicals. Some of the peaks of our project in my opinion were towards the end. In the end, we began to all work hard and were able to put forth what we believed was a strong project. I feel as if we did great on the game night where it seemed like every player had fun playing our game. But, along with those peaks, we had some bad moments as well. Most happened towards the beginning where I struggled with painting the grid onto the board. While I was doing this, I painted a few lines wrong which definitely pushed us behind most other groups. In the end, I was very happy with the entire process. I learned a ton and had a lot of fun while doing it.