Next month I am helping Mrs. Trusty with an after-school STEM coding class using Scratch. I have used Scratch in the past, but have never tried to do anything complicated. After reviewing the basics, I thought I would try to recreate a classic arcade game. I made my own version of Asteroids.
After I had the Asteroids game working, I converted it to a game that can help a student trying to learn ionic charges of elements. Typically this subject is covered in the second nine weeks of high school chemistry. It is also touched on during freshman physical science.
The game requires you to shoot an ion with that ion’s charge. Cations must be shot with positive bullets and anions must be shot with negative bullets. The bullet must match the charge of the ion.
For instance, sodium is a plus one ion so it can only be eliminated with a plus one bullet. Oxygen is a minus two ion and must be hit with a negative two bullet. Pressing the 1, 2 or 3 key launches a particle with that numerical charge. The space bar toggles the charge between positive and negative.
See how many of the ionic charges you remember with Ionoids.
