Molecule Mash

As High School students, my friends and I were often tormented by Chemistry. It made no sense the first time around, and took a long time to learn it. As we grew, we eventually learned to enjoy Chemistry. However we found that as children, it was significantly hard to learn the subject from just watching the teacher and reading the books. We wanted an easy and fun way to learn Chemistry and decided to share our knowledge of Chemistry through an outlet we thought was appropriate: games. We made a game where users will be given a select set of elements to combine and create molecules. Each level has a theme and a given set of molecules to create. Players will have to combine and create the molecules as fast as possible. We spent countless hours creating atoms and molecules from scratch for the game, and many hours discussing how we could reach our goal with the project: A game that will reach the classrooms of typical Middle and High Schools.

One feature of our game we were most proud of was the easy to use user interface to select elements. We used a scroll view controller in order to allow the user to scroll through 14 elements. Crowding the screen with 14 elements was definitely not an option, so a Scroll View was definitely the most optimal way to go about our game.

The other feature of our game that we were proud of is the accuracy of the 14 elements and over 30 molecules that we created from scratch. We made sure to choose molecules that taught the basics of atomic chemistry. Our level system is themed, with each level teaching the user about special groups of molecules. An ionic-bond level, acid and bases, even common household goods, such as Dry-Ice and gasoline--we challenged our users to create molecules in order to experience different areas of atomic chemistry.

Although our game is only in a prototype stage, we plan on taking the game to the fullest extent, adding more levels and improving the user interface even after the hackathon. Next time you browse the app store, look our for Molecule Mash, an easy and explosively fun way to learn atomic chemistry.