🎞 Atoms, Atoms Everywhere • Atomic Bonding

 

I think my animations above do an excellent job at answering the driving question for this project “How do the electron arrangements of atoms determine the chemical and physical properties of elements and compounds?” So make sure to watch them!

As with most Scimatics projects, we started off this project with a Mindmap:

Now that we’ve finished this project, I’ve updated it with answers to many of my questions:

I think that this Milestone demonstrates my ability extend on the curricular competency “Questioning and Predicting: Demonstrate a sustained intellectual curiosity about a scientific topic or problem of personal interest.” Because there are a few questions that I don’t have answers to yet, I still have room to learn more in the future!

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For this assignment we created an animated video for the procedure for an experiment titled “Investigation 2A.”

Then we actually got to do the experiment! We found that we actually had to stick the burning splint into the test tube containing the Hydrochloric Acid and Mossy Zinc for it to create the right effect which was a popping sound. Here’s a short video of Ewan and I inserting the splint into the test tube:

I really enjoyed getting to do an experiment since we don’t do them very often and it was interesting to see, I should say hear, the results.

We then did some story boarding for our actual animations. I should note at this point that this was an individual project and aside from some feedback and the experiment, we did this project individually. I found it difficult to choose a compound to animate, but in the end I decided on the Covalent Compound Bicarbonate (HCO₃) and the Ionic Compound Zinc Bromide (ZnBr₂). I believe that this Milestone demonstrated my ability to accomplish the curricular competency “Processing and Analyzing: Construct, analyze and interpret models and/or diagrams.” The main challenge I found while making the storyboard was trying to figure out how to arrange the electrons so that all the atoms had the correct amount. Here’s my completed storyboard:

Then I spent a lot of time animating the final stories with the help of my storyboard. I think this Milestone did a great job at demonstrating my ability to extend on the curricular competency “Communicating: Formulate physical or mental theoretical models to describe a phenomenon” as the video was an easy and fun way for other to learn about Ionic and Covalent bonding.  Unfortunately my iPad kept crashing while trying to animate, but with the help of my Grandpa’s Mac, I was able to complete both of the videos! If you didn’t check out the videos at the top of this post, make sure to do so now!

I learnt a lot about atomic bonding, periodic tables and chemical properties. I did find it challenging to animate due to faulty technology, but I’m happy that I was able to make animations that I’m happy with. I look forward to making more animations in the future!