This past unit in math, we have been learning about polynomials. There not too hard to understand, but for some reason there are letters which make me wonder if theres going to be numbers in English soon. Anyways, I am going to explain to you how this is linked to a “Fun” Math Game.
In math we learned about three different things, the first was expanding. we basically had to take an equation with letters and numbers and make it look bigger. We then learned about factoring which is the exact opposite of expanding. With factoring you take the product of something that has been expanded and turn it into its original form. We then learned about perfect squares, which brings me to my next topic, algebra tiles. Personally I hate algebra tiles, I don’t know why, I just think it kinda of messes with my head as I would rather just do the equation normally. We ended up doing a lot of worksheets in class for a couple of weeks. After those couple of weeks were over we brought a project into the picture, which was intriguing at first until I found out it had to involve algebra tiles. Im only kidding I don’t care that much about algebra tiles. Anyways the project that we had to do, was make a math game that uses algebra tiles, skill, and chance.
My partner Ryan, and I took a while to figure out what exactly we were going to do. We were thinking of ripping off monopoly, then we realized that wasn’t the best idea. Finally we came up with a fun idea of a math game that I wouldn’t totally mind playing. We ended up thinking of the idea of involving darts into the game. The way we did that was by having the person throw a dart, and whatever number they hit thats how many spaces they move forward or backward on the board. After you throw the dart you go and do a question that includes algebra tiles, if you get right u move forward, if you get it wrong you move backward. The questions will be on cards, and they will be mixed up with factoring and expanding questions. An extra rule is if you identify that something is a perfect square you get to move forward and extra space on the board. After we finished making the game we had to play it and make video.
Of course we weren’t very creative so we called it dart algebra. On the other hand I was very proud of this project as I found it went quite smoothly. Although we did fool around sometimes in class which led to us finishing this video last minute and handing it in late. I am still happy with what Ryan and I produced as I felt it was as “fun” a math game we could make.