By Kelsea Bergerson, Quinton Graybeal, Beau McAndrew, and Marilynn Hunt
This project was fun and informative. We spent most of the time allotted for it learning about all sorts of different chemical reactions. The goal of the project was to create an interactive board game that had single displacement, double displacement, chemical, and physical reactions, a production of gas, and would light an LED. Our group decided to do a volcano themed board game.
The objective of the game was to reach the top of the volcano first. Our reactions were obstacles the players had to surpass in order to reach the top. Our first was a single displacement reaction. It was an aluminum gate they needed to pass by breaking it down with copper chloride. We had an LED connected to the aluminum, so as soon as the aluminum split, so did the circuit and the LED lit up. The next obstacle was a pond. The players would need to solidify the pond to cross. This reaction was a double displacement consisting of copper nitrate and ammonium sulfate. Our final reaction was a production of gas. You can't have a volcano game without an eruption. We used acetic acid (vinegar), sodium bicarbonate (baking soda), and red food dye.
The objective of the game was to reach the top of the volcano first. Our reactions were obstacles the players had to surpass in order to reach the top. Our first was a single displacement reaction. It was an aluminum gate they needed to pass by breaking it down with copper chloride. We had an LED connected to the aluminum, so as soon as the aluminum split, so did the circuit and the LED lit up. The next obstacle was a pond. The players would need to solidify the pond to cross. This reaction was a double displacement consisting of copper nitrate and ammonium sulfate. Our final reaction was a production of gas. You can't have a volcano game without an eruption. We used acetic acid (vinegar), sodium bicarbonate (baking soda), and red food dye.
Game Rules and Safety Precautions
Content
- chemical reaction: process where one or more substances turn into one or more new substances; each substance has unique chemical and physical properties
- reactant: a substance that undergoes a change during a reaction
- product: a substance formed as a result of a reaction
- single displacement reaction: reaction where an element replaces its like element in an ionic compound or acid (ab+c→cb+a)
- double displacement reaction: reaction where two aqueous, ionic compounds exchange ions and form two new ionic compounds (ab+cd→ad+cb)
- decomposition reaction: reaction where one reactant yields two or more products (ab→a+b)
- synthesis reaction: reaction where two or more reactants make one product (a+b→ab)
- neutralization reaction: reaction in which an acid and a base react with each other to form water and a salt
- combustion reaction: an exothermic reaction in which a hydrocarbon reacts with oxygen to become H₂O and CO₂ (hydrocarbon+O₂→CO₂+H₂O)
- ion: an atom with a net electric charge because of the loss or gain of one or more electrons
- anion: a negative ion
- cation: a positive ion
Reflection
I thoroughly enjoyed this project. It was fun and interesting. We were given the opportunity to be creative with our game and collaborate with our group mates. I also learned a lot from this project. We did a lot of mini labs in order to understand each type of reaction. My favorite was the double displacement lab because you never knew which two solutions would create a precipitate. An improvement we could have made on our project was better organization. A few times during the project we didn't have much to do because we didn't have the supplies we needed. We could have fixed this by planning out our work days. Something we did well was our communication. Our group got along and everyone was able to voice their opinion. This was a good project, and hopefully we will do another similar one next semester!