Light 'Em Up - The circuits board game

A game based on Battle ships. (Alternative name: Bulbs and Batt(ery) ships?)

“Ammeter on A3”
“Voltmeter from B1 to B3”

I used this as an entire lesson’s activity, pitting my students against each other in a knock out tournament. The game reinforces and assesses their knowledge of voltage and current in series and parallel. It can be adapted to differentiate by giving them suggested boards and including some numbers. I’ve included a cheat sheet page for this purpose.

How to set up:

1. Design your board.
2. Work out the voltage and current at different points on your board.
   How to play:
   The aim of the game is to correctly draw your opponent’s circuit. On your go, choose a square and ask for the current, or choose 2 squares and ask for the voltage across them. Your opponent has to be honest and correct! You can ask 1 question per go and take it in turns until someone can correctly draw the circuit.

Teacher instructions:

Pupils should be in pairs or 4s to play this game.
Each group will need 2 game boards, 2 sets of tokens and 2 answer sheets.
I suggest printing and laminating the game board page and cutting out the tokens, and then printing disposable answer sheets for them to draw and scribble on. You could even use Velcro on the back of the tokens so that they stick to the board.