Orbital Battleship: A Guessing Game to Reinforce Atomic Structure

Abstract

A competitive educational guessing game "Orbital Battleship" which reinforces Madelung's and Hund's rules, values of quantum numbers, and understanding of periodicity was designed. The game develops strategic thinking, is not time-consuming, requires minimal preparation and supervision, and is an efficient and fun alternative to more traditional forms of education.

Element Enterprise Tycoon: Playing Board Games to Learn Chemistry in Daily Life

“…In this study, based on the literature review, the chemical concepts in board games may be divided into three categories. The first category is organic chemistry-related topics, such as the nomenclature of organic compounds, organic synthesis, chemical structure, functional groups, chemical reaction formulas, and other chemical concepts [4,[7][8][9][10][11][12][13]. The second category includes topics concerning the periodic table, such as the atomic order of chemical elements, atomic weight, melting point, boiling point, color, and the use of chemical elements [1,3,5,14].…”

“…The use of scientific board games for teaching and the gamification of scientific concepts has become an emerging teaching trend [1]. Several board games for supporting the teaching of chemistry courses have been employed by many schoolteachers and science education scholars [1][2][3][4][5][6][7][8][9][10][11][12][13][14]. Research shows the difficulties in helping students achieve higher learning motivation by using only the traditional modes of memorization and repeated practice, which may cause students to lose their interest in science as well as their willingness to further study and explore science independently [2,3].…”

Board and card games for studying electrochemistry: Preliminary research and early design

“…They are already available commercially or published as research materials, for examples video games, android application, modified poker games, card games, and board games [3][4][5][6]. The games in chemistry provide an efficient and fun alternative to more forms of education [4].…”

“…They are already available commercially or published as research materials, for examples video games, android application, modified poker games, card games, and board games [3][4][5][6]. The games in chemistry provide an efficient and fun alternative to more forms of education [4]. It can be used as a method to engage students at an early stage of chemical education, providing a different perspective from the textbook, and an effective and entertaining way to help college students learn some aspects of general chemistry [6].…”

Orbital Battleship: A Multiplayer Guessing Game in Immersive Virtual Reality

“…Hence, we were motivated to develop a game in the virtual reality, where the electron configuration of different atoms would be in the spotlight. We decided to base it on our previous game, Orbital Battleship, a hands-on competitive exercise which has proven to be an efficient tool to reinforce knowledge of the atomic structure. Our idea was to give it a more futuristic look, and we are presenting VR Orbital Battleship, a completely immersive collaborative experience which, in contrast to the pen-and-paper version, guarantees that students are unable to fill in an erroneous electron configuration.…”