Nerdily Cool Periodic Table

The periodic table of elements can be slightly intimidating. It may be because of a bad chemistry teacher you had in high school, or because you haven’t had fun interactions with it. 2019 is the International Year of Periodic Table and it is calling for another chance to be friends with you! Here, we have created a nerdily cool version of the periodic table where the elements tell you about themselves and make you laugh. Click on any element for its introduction and/or nerdy jokes. We also made a game where you let us guess which element you became best friends with.

The focus of this project is to bring attention to the periodic table regardless of the chemistry background or level of interest in a unique way. In this creative periodic table, the design, the interactive panels, interesting facts and jokes about the elements, and games were added and emphasized.

The structure of the table and the games were constructed using Java. We used GUI to enable clicking the periodic table for popup windows and read in XML files about the logic behind the guessing game. Some of the struggles we faced include fitting a massive amount of information in a short time period and improving the design. Through this project, we picked up more skills related to Java including how to change fonts and how to use GUI. We also learned interesting facts about elements and the importance of teamwork, dividing work and responsibilities, and time management. If more time was given, additional functions would have been introduced to bring more interactions with users such as more games like lego or an interface where users can add information.

We hope you find our periodic table nerdy but cool to be friends with!