reflection on my tectonic chances board game


END OF THE WORLD REFLECTION

Over the past month I have been working on a board game about tectonic plates and probability. In this post I will give you a timeline, a reflection on how I did and more.

Timeline:

We started our project with a mind map, an activity about game rules and learned a bit about tectonic plates.

We did an experiment to learn how tectonic plates move, learned more about tectonic plates and wrote down vocabulary on our own and in our groups. (shout out to Cameron

We worked on our board games for the first time. In my group Cameron started the board while I made a box for the Game and pieces. I finishes the box roughly and then moved on to helping Cameron with the board decor.

Then we wrote our rules and made the pieces and cards. After that we polished up the board to make it better and Cameron with help from  Makai who is not in our group changed the colour from marker to paint. While that was happening I melted a box that was used for the pieces and shanked it. Then Makai helped decorate the side of the box. Once that was done Cameron decorated the inside and out side of the box while I made a new lid for the small box and some pieces so the board did not fall over. (they where also painted by Cameron)

We tested our game, refined the rules and then we had a board games day to end off the project.

The theory of plate tectonics and supporting evidence is a central theme of the game. 10 key science concepts are described. Game pieces visually represent tectonics concepts. I think I did well as we made a functional, board, deck of cards, players, case and boxes. We made a good set of rules including the science concepts we used and probability. We drafted, made adjustments, tested and experimented our way to a good game that is completely original.

All class time is used efficiently for learning and project work without distractions. I think I did well at this as me and cameron both worked really hard at this and we did not really goof off as we wanted to do a good job and do it right. When ever we thought we were done we would look for things to improve on. By doing that we made a better case, boxes for the game pieces and the dice. We tested are game as well and used each test run to look for problems that we fixed.

The tectonics game uses probability in each turn to determine outcomes. The probability of several example combinations of events is clearly calculated in the game instructions. I think me and Cameron did a good job at that as we had a fully calculated list of the fractions and % of each outcome. We first had to list each card type and then using the total amount calculate the fractions for each outcome. Then we converted them into % to make it easier to understand as we had to make them easy to understand.

In conclusion I had a great time doing this project. I learned a lot science wise and math wise. It was very fun and it helped me with my collaborative and communicating skills. I had a good time and will see you at the next post.

 

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