Chemical Dominoes

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Code

// Licensed under Creative Commons 0 No Rights Reserved// To the extent possible under law, Dexter Maher has waived // all copyright and related or neighboring rights to // EnvRad Board Game Arduino Code. // This work is published from: United States.
#include <Servo.h>
int LDR = A0;int LED = 9;int lightVal = 0;bool hasRun = false;
int servoPin = 3;Servo Servo1;
void setup() { // put your setup code here, to run once: pinMode(LDR, INPUT); pinMode(LED, OUTPUT); Serial.begin(9600); Servo1.attach(servoPin);}
void loop() { // put your main code here, to run repeatedly: lightVal = analogRead(LDR); if (lightVal >= 565){ digitalWrite(LED,HIGH); } if(!hasRun){ Servo1.write(180); delay(5000); Servo1.write(0); hasRun = true; }}

What We Did

For our project, we were asked to choose a theme and develop it fully. The theme our group chose was environmental radicalism. The name of our game is Direct Action, and the story takes multiple players through different paths to save the natural world from the oil baron aiming to destroy the environment with invasive fracking and mining operations. There are four paths, one for each player, that ultimately culminates in the complete and total destruction of this barons operation and restoration of animal habitats. After the players collectively freeze the polar ice caps, they are asked to choose from the paths. The first path is cleaning up an acid spill, the second is flying over toxic runoff by making a hot air balloon, the third is the destruction of an excavator and other heavy machinery, and the fourth and final path is lighting fire to the oil barons house, preventing them from harming the environment any further.

0. Freeze the Tundra -- players drop silver nitrate into hydrochloric acid to create silver chlorate and hydrogen nitrate, hydrogen nitrate being a white precipitate. (DD) AgNO3 (aq) + HCl (aq) → AgCl (s) + HNO3 (aq)

Acid Spill -- Players pour sodium hydroxide into hydrochloric acid, yielding sodium chloride and water. This will have an indicator solution present in it, so that players can see when they have effectively eliminated the acid, making it safe to pass. (DD) NaOH(l) + HCl(l) → NaCl(l) + H2O(l)
Fly Over Toxins -- Players will mix acetic acid and sodium bicarbonate to expand a balloon, allowing them to pass the runoff. (PoG/D) NaHCO3(s) + CH3COOH(l) → CO2(g) + H2O(l) + Na CH3COO(l)
Industrial Sabotage -- Players will pour hydrochloric acid over magnesium to decompose the metal into magnesium chloride and hydrogen gas. (SR) Mg(s) + 2 HCl(aq) → MgCl 2(aq) + H 2(g)
Burn it Down -- Players will place their piece on copper tape, completing a circuit, turning on a lighter, lighting a Bunsen burner, lighting magnesium on fire, triggering a photo-resistor to turn LED's on inside of the baron's house, representing a fire. (C/C) 2Mg(s) + O2(g) → 2MgO(s)

Major Concepts

Double Displacement Reaction: A double displacement reaction occurs when two elements (or sub-compounds) within reacting compounds switch places. We used double displacement reactions in Freeze the Tundra and Acid Spill.

Single Replacement Reaction: Single replacement reactions occur when one element (or sub-compound) in a compound replaces an element in another compound. This occurred in Industrial Sabotage.

Production of Gas / Decomposition: A gas can be produced many ways in many different chemical reactions, but for Fly Over Toxins, gas was produced in a decomposition reaction where one element was displaced from a larger compound.

Combustion Reaction/Composition: In Burn it Down, players lit magnesium on fire, which is a clear combustion reaction, but oxygen in the air also bonds with the magnesium when it is lit on fire, so it also serves as an example of a composition reaction.

Lighting the LED: Burn it Down, path 4, sets off the LED by using a Servo motor, and photo-resistor.

2 Things I Did Well

The two areas that I excelled in were critical thinking and creativity. For critical thinking, I helped my group solve a lot of problems, along with taking on the responsibility of coding the Arduino and trouble shooting anything that came up there. Every aspect of the board game worked consistently and gave the desired outcome, and I believe that I played an important role in working out any kinks in the game. As for creativity, we had a pretty out of the box idea to begin with, and I think we walked the line of absurdism and fun pretty well. It took some work to make the reactions fit the theme of environmental radicalism, but in the end it turned out quite well. One specific example of creativity on my part was designing and creating the oil baron's house at the end of the game. The big crescendo was well worth the time spent cutting out foam board.

2 Things I Can Improve On

Two specifics I can improve on is collaboration and communication. For collaboration I often felt that I was off doing my own part of the project while other teammates were together. Both coding and designing the house gave me this feeling. While I was still helping the team, I wanted to see what everyone else was up to. I think this issue can be simply alleviated by just moving closer to my group when I work. For communication, there were a few times that I didn't understand the ideas that people were talking about, but just went along to see what would come of it. For example, Nathaniel seemed to have all kinds of ideas about the board game, and while I didn't understand all of them from his descriptions, I was willing to go along with it. Looking back I should have asked more questions and gained a deeper understanding into his plan to better help the team move in the direction it was aiming for.

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