We recently just finished one of my for sure favourite scimatics projects. In this project we have to code a small game/applet in scratch about atoms. And add information explains how the KMT works.

Milestone 1: Project start 

Just like every other project we started with a Mind Map were we wrote our questions, what we knew and terms that we learnt. When we finished the project we added a section to answer our  question. You can see what I wrote down below.

Milestone 2: Building Knowledge 

For milestone 2 we drew different atomic models. The different atomic models were

Atomic model – 1808 (John Dalton)

-All matter is made up of small indestructible atoms

-Atoms cannot be created or destroyed 

-Atoms of different elements can form compounds 

Plum pudding model – 1904 (J.J Thompson) 

-An atom has no electric charge 

-In an atom both positive and negative charges are equal 

-An atom is a sphere of positive charge with negatively charged electrons inside inside like a blueberry muffin 

Nuclear model – 1911 (Ernest Rutherford)

-Atoms are mostly made up of empty space 

-Most mass in an atom is in the centre in one tiny dense positively charged core called a nucleus

-Electrons are located outside the nucleus 

Planetary model – 1913 (Niels Bohr)

– Electrons orbit the nucleus 

-The energy of an orbit is related to its size.

-Electrons move to different orbit shells when gaining or losing energy 

Quantum Mechanical Model – 1926 (Erwin Schrodinger)

-Electrons don’t move around the nucleus in orbits they move around in a cloud of electrons 

The models drew were The Dalton model – For sugar, The Plum pudding model – For sodium, The Nuclear model – For carbon and the planetary model – For neon.

Milestone 3&4: Designing and Planning  

As you know the final product of this project is a small applet/game that we code in Scratch about atoms and the KMT (Kinetic Molecular Theory). My plan/design was to create a game were you were a water molecule, and you had to dodge all the other molecules as they changed states (stared moving faster or slower).

 My first plan was definitely different to my final game. I had planned to make eight levels were the molecules slowly speed up, but then I needed up only making 3 levels each a different state. I also planned to add different types of molecules that you could play to my game but I only ended up having the water molecule.     

Milestone 5: Developing the game 

You can play my game by visiting this link, https://scratch.mit.edu/projects/658542456

Your goal is to get through the 3 different levels without touching any of the water molecules as they speed up. The programming for this game I found to be fairly difficult because I had barley ever coded on scratch before, but I was able to find some tutorials and YouTube videos on coding in scratch.  

Curricular competencies

There were 3 main competencies this project. The first one is Questioning and predicting: Demonstrate a sustained curiosity about a scientific topic or problem of personal interest. I feel like I did well on this because I actually really liked this project and I learned a lot of new cool facts.   

The second competency was Scientific communication: communicate ideas, findings, and solutions to problems using scientific language, representations, and digital technologies. I also feel like I did good on this because I was able to use my iPad to find information to help me on my project.

The last competency was Reasoning ad Analyzing: Use logic and patterns (including coding) to solve puzzles and play games. Lastly I definitely did best on this because I was able to grow and learn how to code on scratch.

In the end I learned a lot about atoms and how kinetic energy works. This was an amazingly fun project, hope you enjoyed reading :].