Exponent Games

Hello everyone! For this term in Math, we got to create a card game using exponent laws. I was partnered with Amelia R .

This was more challenging than it may seem as we had to not only make a game that was easy and free-flowing, but at the same time mathematically plausible and followed exponent laws. We also wanted to make sure that the game was something you could play without needing a calculator, otherwise it wouldn’t be fun.

The game had to be free-flowing, which meant that it needed to move from one player’s turn to the next naturally. Our game was a take on UNO. We had a lot of challenges to overcome with how the following player would match their game card to the one that had just been played, and had to make sure that cards had a base number that worked. This involved us using a lot of logic and patterns to solve how to play the game.

We also had to make sure that we had a good understanding of the exponent laws so we could use these to develop our game play. On our first couple of tries, some of the rules for how to play and place down cards didn’t work too well because it didn’t fit the exponent laws. It wasn’t so much a math game as it was too close of a replication of an UNO game. We had to problem solve and rethink the rules in order to make it work.

We then had to develop that cards themselves. For this we needed to make sure the pictures and symbols on the cards accurately represented the mathematical ideas of exponent laws. Amelia did a great job on the cards as she did the actual design. I contributed the idea of a Western theme.

Lastly, we needed to make sure that you could use mental math strategies to solve each card, because using a calculator to play a game isn’t much fun.

For the curricular competencies we used during this project, the one that we used to develop our game the most was to develop, demonstrate and apply mathematical understanding through play, inquiry and problem solving. We used the competency of using logic and patterns to solve puzzles and game play in fixing our game flow. I think we improved on this competency the most. We also used the competency of applying mental math strategies to make sure our game was fun for the people playing. The last competency we used a lot was representing mathematical ideas in concrete, pictorial, and symbolic form as we made the playing cards.

In conclusion, our game worked pretty well after our revisions, and it was a fun way to help remember all of the exponent laws.  Below is our project end mind map that shows what we learned.

Project end mind map -1bw10fp