Our Periodic Table game project was all about turning 2 “Periodic Table” concepts into challenges that can be played in a game. Instead of using to concepts we used 1 because we didn’t read the directions carefully.Our group chose to make a game, using the concept of patterns in the Periodic Table. We used the concept of patterns in the Periodic Table and the inspiration of popular board games. To create our own version of Tic-Tac-Toe. Sadly, we never took the time to name our game so I’ll just refer to it as TIc-Tac-Toe.
While creating our game we encountered many problems. First of all our first idea for our game was Connect-4. Unfortunately, we didn’t have enough time because we had wasted to much time fooling around. We also couldn’t decide what we wanted to use between styrofoam and wood. At first we went for wood and we were told we didn’t have enough time. We then started using styrofoam. Except our styrofoam model broke too easily and was hard to cut or shape. As a last resort we decided to go easy and make our model out of plain and lame paper. We also changed our game into Tic-Tac-Toe. Heroically, the day before the game was due we bought a black board and we made 25 equal squares. Then we finalized our black board our final product which was a modified version of Tic-Tac-Toe was created.
After the project I was expecting to get a B on the project but I was wrong. There were so many requirements for the project that I didn’t follow. I didn’t use Bloom’s taxonomy as an outline and I didn’t use two concepts in my grade. I only used one concept. Our project started off well but it didn’t end well. We only did half of one of the two required game concepts. The focus of our game which was having a minimum of 4 elements in a row with the same number of valence electrons. However our game didn’t really correlate with the periodic table and our game wasn’t really complete. In the end I was really disappointed with my grade but I wasn’t surprised. The assessment was fair based on the criteria. Sadly I struggled on keeping attention and being off task. I would have needed to choose partners that weren’t my really good friend so I could stay more on task because I am a chatter box. My teacher could have helped me become more successful if she checked my groups progress at the end of every class we had in the makerspace.
To be honest I wasted a lot of class time during the first two classes we had to work on our project. I wasn’t taking the project seriously and I was fooling around too much. Those two classes were meant for planning, preparing and constructing the game. On the third class day we were behind and we were still struggling to find a plan for our project. Eventually we picked up the pace and we did all the planning and preparing. In the last 20 minutes we started constructing our game out of styrofoam but we had to finish it at my house after school. What was meant to be a study session at my house turned out to be a playing session. In the end we played more than we worked. I regret not taking this project seriously because in the end my grade didn’t please me, my partners or my parents. I then the future for my projects I will make a checklist for what I will have to accomplish every class.
I think I learned a valuable lesson out of this and that is that if you don’t take a project seriously then you don’t have the right to complain about your poor grade. Throughout this experience I learned that the most reactive groups are group and 7. I also learned following the directions is the key to getting a good grade. If you don’t follow the directions it shows a lack of effort. I also felt embarrassed because the other groups had really fun games that were really organized. In the future I will take projects way seriously and I will work for a good grade. I hope I learned a lot out of this experience. YOu know what they say about failure “ One fails forward toward success.” – Charles F. Kettering
A Photo of my peers playing the game Oumar, Joaquin and I created.