Our Project
For this project, my group and I were tasked to make am board game that included a double replacement reaction, a single replacement reaction, create a gas, and turn an LED light on. We had to en-cooperate all of these tasks into a board game that had a special theme in around two weeks. At first we struggled with a theme because our board had already been used and all we could do to fix it was paint it white. We had no idea what theme to pick because all we had was a white board to work with. I had the idea for a winter Olympics theme which we then used and worked out perfectly for our board that we were given. After we still needed to make everything for a board game that would fit this theme, we started off with the track that the players will be following with tiles. We created a pattern for the tiles that were the colors of the Olympic rings. Then we made our characters, Olympic rings that were placed in the middle of the board game, added shortcuts to involve the chemical reactions, and a stand for first, second, and third place that was put at the end of the board game. We included all of our chemical reactions through the board which we did at the end after adding all of our final details, and adding the snow which really brightened our theme for the board. The goal for this Board game was to finish first and beat all of your other openest and crown yourself victor with a gold medal. This is our completed 2022 Winter Olympic Board Game where four lucky people are contestants and must complete the winter game in order to earn a spot in the finals. Our game includes two single-replacement reactions and one double-replacement reaction that tie into our theme. To start off, there is a total of four game pieces one can choose from. There is a pair of skis, ice skates, a snowboard, and a snowman that had a dream to be in the olympics included with all the other sports. The ultimate goal of this game was to win the gold metal, receive first place, and light up the gold/yellow light on the podium at the end. Throughout the game, there are many shortcuts and chemical reactions each player must advance through in order to win. To the right is a picture of our final product and a picture of our directions: -------> Content: |
Single Replacement reaction (Gas phase reaction): this is a reaction in which the reactants as well as the product are gaseous under the conditions in which the reaction is being carried out, creating a gas. This gas reaction was used for a shortcut in our board game about half way through the game and is a single replacement reaction. The two chemicals we used were sodium bicarbonate AKA baking soda which is a cation and vinegar. When these two chemicals are mixed they create a gas which is carbon dioxide and the chemical formula is CH3COOH +NaHCO3 = CH3COONa + CO2 + H2O. This was incorporated in our board with three balloons and vials, each balloon containing baking soda and two vials containing water and one with vinegar. If you guess correctly and tip the balloon with baking soda with the vile that has vinegar and not water it will create a gas causing the balloon to expand which then you can jump ahead for the shortcut if you created the gas by guessing correctly. When the player that gets to guess first chooses the wrong one, they do not advance and gives other players a chance to use the shortcut. This shortcut allows the player that gets it to advance nine tiles. ( the picture shown above is how we demonstrated this reaction)
Single Replacement reaction: A type of reaction where an element reacts with a compound and takes the place of another element in that compound. This was used in our board game early on in the game for the first shortcut. When the first player that crosses the ice skating rink going through the shortcut, the player has to mix a blue liquid called copper nitrate into the foil because this chemical reaction takes some time. The reason that the LED light is not on is because the aluminum foil is blocking the charge that is connected to the breadboard and the battery. The copper nitrate when poured into the container with the strand of aluminum dissolves the aluminum and will turn on the led light once the bond has been broken. This is because aluminum is higher on the reactivity series than copper. The equation for copper nitrate is Cu(NO3)2 + Al2 O3 -> Cu O3 + Al2(NO3)2. This equation means that copper nitrate is mixing with aluminum foil, which produces/yields copper and aluminum nitrate, therefore makes the aluminum dissolve which then later on turns on the LED light which in this case is in the first place bracket. The other single replacement reaction that we used is the gas phase one which is shown and described above.
Double replacement reaction: A type of chemical reaction where two compounds react and the cations and the anions of the two reactants switch places, forming two new compounds or product. This reaction was formed at the very end of our board game. The player in first has to stop at the yellow tile with a medal on it and was able to grant them selves an early victor by creating there very own gold medal, while the others players had a chance to catch up. The player in first used this double replacement reaction by combine calcium nitrate and iron chloride. When these two chemicals are combined, the calcium trades its nitrate ion for the sodium's chloride ion, causing the sodium to pick up the nitrate anion. When this reaction occurs, you will get a gold like color for your solution, crowning yourself an early victor. The equation for this chemical reaction is FeCl3 + Ca(NO3)2 -> Fe(NO3)2 + CaCl3. This equation shows that calcium trades its nitrate ion for the sodium's chloride ion, causing the sodium to pick up the nitrate anion, this then creates a gold liquid for your final product. ( this picture is shown below)
Cation: A cation is an ion with a positive charge and has a huge roll in our chemical reactions. A cation is used in each one of our chemical reactions and without these, the reaction would not occur. Since a cation has a positive charge, when it is mixed with and anion or another cation it can create a chemical reaction mainly in a double replacement reaction which was used in our project used in our project.
Anion: An anion is and ion with a negative charge and also plays a crucial roll in our chemical reactions. Since this ion has a negative charge and is the opposite of a cation, when the two are mixed with different substances it can create a lot of things. This ion was mainly used in our double replacement reaction that occurred at the end of our board game.
LED Light: a semiconductor device that emits visible light when an electric current passes through it. This was used in our first single replacement reaction. When copper nitrate was mixed with aluminum foil,Cu(NO3)2 + Al2 O3 -> Cu O3 + Al2(NO3)2 the copper nitrate dissolves the aluminum foil allowing the electricity current to flow to the LED light allowing it to turn on. ThE light was turned on around half way through the game, it really depended on how thick the aluminum was.
Reflection:
I thought that this project went very well, I was very happy with our final product and how all of our reactions were very successful and everyone who played our board game had a great time. My group and I all worked very well together and collaborated good with finishing the board game, adding the three chemical reactions, and finishing all of our other attachments on top of presenting to a number of judges. In the begging of the project, my group and I were in a tough position with creating ideas and starting the board. Once I thought of an idea and we worked on it everything went very smoothly. One pit for this project was staying on task, my group and I got distracted quite easily and this made us have to work harder to finish on time. Another pit for this project was dividing the work equally, Matt and myself were doing the majority of the work with coming up with ideas, adding all the touches to the board, and doing the chemical reactions while our other members were doing much. It would have gone a lot faster if we all had dived and equal parts for this project. A peak would definitely be collaborating with my group, we all worked very well together with little to known arguments. Another peak for this project is how much I learned from this project, when we added all of the reactions, it taught me a lot about the formulas and how the reactions worked. Overall I though that this project was very cool and fun, and I also learned a lot from it.
Below is a picture of our blueprint for our board game which also has a timeline for the things that we needed to do and in what order.