Barely Functional is a functional group card game suitable for two to six players. Students collect and discard cards in each round in hopes of collecting a whole family of functional groups before the round is over. Once the round is over, students who have collected the first family move on to collect the next family in the hierarchy in the next round. The game is over when someone collects the last family in the hierarchy. 

All Big Magnet Games aim to build fluency in chemistry-related vocabularies and concepts. Barely Functional aims to cultivate fluency in students as it pertains to functional groups. Every functional group card in this game is unique. No two aldehydes are structurally identical, no two aromatics are structurally identical. Students must become adept at recognizing the components that determine functional group classification in order to reach the final family. Students will also practice naming each functional group as they must say the name of the functional group in order to pick up a revealed card, or discard a card from their hand.

Barely Functoinal now comes in a variety of colors so that your students can have an easier time putting the appropriate cards back in the appropriate box. Cards come in red, orange, yellow, green, blue and purple. Click the highlighted links for each color to find the purchase page from The Game Crafter.

If printing locally is more accessible for you, please consider these free print-and-play versions of Barely Functional: red, orange, yellow, green, blue, and purple. Find a PDF copy of suggestions for use here (coming soon).

Downloadable files coming soon

Chaperones is a multiplayer game where students play as a team against the teacher! Each student will receive their own a deck of cards with an amino acid on the face of each card. Each student plays as a chaperone, a protein that monitors protein folding. Students will draw ten cards from their own deck and take turns placing an amino acid down on the main pile. In order to place an amino acid down, it must have a favorable interaction with the amino acid already face up. When each chaperone folds their amino acid, they must describe what type of interaction (polar, non polar, anion-cation, pi-pi, pi-cation, disulfide) is causing these two amino acids to associate. 

If a student is unable to lay down a card on their turn, they must add a card to their hand from their deck and skip their turn. If the chaperones are all able to fold all the amino acids in their hand before the teacher runs out of cards, the chaperones win!

The teacher plays as a prion—a misfolded protein that intentionally misfolds other proteins. Every round where a chaperone is forced to skip their turn, the prion gets a chance to play on their next turn. Prions may play any card in their hand—ignoring the interaction rule. If the prion runs out of cards first, the protein is misfolded and will not function, meaning the prion has won.

All Big Magnet Games aim to build fluency in chemistry-related vocabularies and concepts. Chaperones aims to build fluency in students by identifying and manipulating of intermolecular interactions present in the R-groups of amino acids. Students must recognize polar elements, non-polar elements, functional groups, cations and anions within the amino acids that are capable of interacting in the tertiary structure of a protein. Beyond recognizing these things, students must manipulate these interactions to demonstrate prowess and deeper understanding of intermolecular forces. 

If you are interested in playing Chaperones, consider purchasing a copy (coming soon) or downloading the card templates to print at home! 

Downloadable files coming soon.

Need help practicing resonance structures? Songbird is here to help!

Songbird is a two player call and response resonance structure game where players alternate between playing as the cantor and the songbird. The cantor draws a card from the deck containing a molecule in a particular resonance form. The cantor draws another resonance form of the molecule and gives the drawing to the songbird. The songbird is not allowed to see the original card, but must deduce and draw the original structure on the card. The songbird may ask for two bits of information to help:

• How many arrows the cantor used to draw the structure?

• Which resonance form is more stable, the given form, or the one the cantor drew?

If the songbird correctly draws the structure on the card, the songbird wins the round and holds on to the card. If the songbird gives the incorrect structure, the Cantor wins the round and holds on to the card. After each round, the songbird and cantor switch roles.

All Big Magnet Games aim to build fluency in chemistry-related vocabularies and concepts. Songbird aims to cultivate fluency in students as it pertains to drawing resonance forms. Each card in the deck contains a unique resonance form and many of them have multiple other resonance forms for a student to choose from to draw. As students practice this game with each other, our hope is that they will become more fluid in drawing resonance forms, using curved arrow formalism, identifying other resonance forms and assessing major and minor contributors.

Interested in playing Songbird? Please consider purchasing a copy today!

Not enough games?

How about a sneak peek?

Even though the above games are already made and ready to go, we are constantly working on and creating new games. Here's a quick summary of games we hope to add to our catalog soon:

Gaggle! - A multiplayer game where students identify groups of molecules by their traits and collect the groups (gaggles) they identify.

Percolate - A self-guided game designed to build student's fluency with drawing organic structures. 

Acid Base Showdown - Who will win? Who will lose? A multiplayer card game where students create the strongest acid or base they can and have a showdown!