Purpose: This project tasked us with creating a game of sorts that would display different chemical reactions that satisfied a few basic requirements. It had to include a single and double displacement reaction, a reaction that lit up an led, a reaction that produced a gas and reactions that showed physical and chemical changes. Armed with a lot of experience in all of these sectors and an essentially limitless project brief, our group had a lot of freedom to try a lot of cool things. Coming into the project, I had a lot of knowledge of oxidizers,, self starting fires, hydrogen gas creation and other fire related experiments. My group members helped keep the project on track and actually doable for the live studio audience and did most of the game board and artistic aspects. In the end, we created a game very loosely based on the popular children’s game, candy land. My group members came up with many cool theme ideas, such as a movie theme but in the end we settled on an UP theme. This meant a lot of balloons and colorful creatures and characters. The gameplay was simple. There were four characters, which participants would move about the multicolored pathway, with the help of a deck of colored cards; signifying to move to the closest spot of that color—whether forward or back. When a player picks a card with a symbol on it, they get to witness one of the cool experiments we had prepared. First one to the last square wins! There were five different experiments: The double displacement reaction between potassium iodide lead nitrate. This really quick reaction involves combining two relatively clear liquids in a test tube where they immediately turn yellow. We called this the butter reaction, though the color was much more neon yellow than the muted pastel yellow you would find from actual butter, but none the less, the reaction was a real hit and seems like magic. But it’s something cooler; it’s chemistry! The single replacement reaction between aluminium and copper chloride. This reaction replaces the copper and aluminium, creating aluminium chloride. Pretty simple, right? This reaction was meant to simulate chocolate malt balls, a common theatre snack. Once again, liberties were taken but the audience, with help from some imagination got the idea. We actually had a second double displacement reaction with the end goal of blowing up a balloon. The reaction was actually one that most of us have already tried; acetic acid and sodium bicarbonate. A favorite reaction in elementary school science fair volcanos, the reaction is actually a little more complicated than one would realize. First, this happens: NaHCO3 + HC2H3O2 → NaC2H3O2 + H2CO3. The astute amongst us may notice one peculiarity; there is no gas, only carbonic acid. This is not a gas and hence the balloon would theoretically just kinda sit there, uninflated. Luckily for us as well as every elementary school science fair, carbonic acid is quite unstable so in undergoes a decomposition reaction creating the reaction’s distinct carbon dioxide gas as well as simple table water. Quickly, the balloon fills up and we have another happy customer. Next, we satisfied the physical change of energy by utilizing numerous laboratory devices to—you guessed it—pop popcorn! The procedure was simple: light bunsen burner then hold erlenmeyer flask filled with popcorn kernels doused in vegetable oil over the flame. But what’s actually happening? Turns out; the process is almost as great as the result. Almost. The little kernel actually has many tiny pockets filled with a small amount of moisture. When the heat is applied, the water inside heats up until finally, the fragile exterior can’t handle it anymore and the exterior ruptures while the surrounding starch essentially bubbles, creating a fluffy, delicious snack. My personal favorite experiment was the elephant's toothpaste. The reaction involves a mixture of a high concentration hydrogen peroxide and potassium iodine. The potassium iodine simply acts as a catalyst for the decomposition of the already unstable hydrogen peroxide. This leads to the production of simple table water and standard oxygen gas like that you would breathe or use as an oxidizer in an oxy-acetylene torch. Before the reaction is initiated, dish soap is added to the hydrogen peroxide which actually traps the oxygen gas, expanding to form a thick foam. This foam, generally referred to online as elephant's toothpaste took on the role of a slushie in our game. The final chemical reaction was an example of something we rely on everyday, batteries. All that was needed to accomplish this was zinc, copper and acetic acid. Don’t worry, for those of you following along at home, the zinc and copper can be found inside your pockets or piggy-bank. Luckily for us, the government tends to be frugal and since 1988, pennies are a mixture of a coin shaped blob of zinc coated in a thin plating of copper. If you were to sand of one side like we did, you would have a coin with zinc on one side and copper on the other. Finally, the acetic acid can be found in simple household vinegar. To make this useable in battery form, simple cardboard can be used to absorb and hold the smelly liquid. A cell is made by stacking the two products together in a sandwich. A working battery that generates over 1.5 amps can be created by stacking a couple of these cells together. We used the battery to light a small led which we called the projector for the UP movie. Reflection: This project was really fun and the perfect opportunity to try out plenty of fun chemistry projects. The group dynamic worked really well and everyone offered different skillsets and everyone pulled their own weight. My only complaint is we didn’t spend more time on it. The project seemed to go by in a blink. But the game was pretty fun and really well designed, and the experiments were really cool.