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Physics Classroom is making strides to make our site accessible to everyone. Our site contains 6 navigation areas. The Primary, Secondary, and Page Level navigations have a screen reader version of their nav structure that allows using the left and right keys to navigate sibling navigation items, and up or down keys to navigate parent or child navigation items. The others can be navigated using tabs. The Primary Navigation handles the first 2 levels of site pages. The Secondary (which is not always available) handles the 3rd and 4th level of structure. The Page level navigation allows you to navigate the current page's headings quickly. The Header Navigation contains the Light/Dark Mode toggle, Search, Notifications and account login. The Breadcrumb Navigation contains the breadcrumb of the current page. If the current page has a breadcrumb, you can get to it by skipping to the content and tabbing in reverse (shift plus tab). The Footer Navigation contains links such as Privacy, Contact, about and terms. Some resources contain an Audio Player that can be activated by holding down the T key for 3 seconds, and then using K to pause and resume. While not every area of Physics Classroom is usable purely from keyboard and screen reader, we are committed to continue work on making this possible. If you have questions or need additional help, please use this link to contact us.

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Periodic Table Battleship - Directions

Using the Periodic Table Battleship Concept Builder is quite simple. There are three difficulty levels in all. All three levels work the same way. You must use your understanding of electron configuration to target, fire at, and sink battleships hidden on the Periodic Table. Each battleship stretches either horizontally or vertically across two or more elements of the table. The right-side panel of the Concept Builder indicates how many ships you must sink and the number of side-by-side elements that the ships are hidden upon.

To fire a torpedo at an element, you must identify the element using last term of the electron configuration for that element (see our Information page if needed). You can tap on the buttons to identify an electron configuration in the form of 3p5. By default, those buttons are labeled with the icons #, Abc, and #. Tapping them toggles through the options: 1-7 for the first number, s-p-d-f for the letters, and 1-14 for the superscripted number. Once you have set the configuration to your liking, tap on the Fire button. You will receive immediate feedback - Hit, Miss, and Hit and Sink. A Strike (bulls-eye with a green check) or a Miss (circle with an X) will be placed in the element's position you targeted. On occassion you will receive the feedback that you have entered an incorrect or non-existent electron configuration. Make adjustments and try again. And if necessary, use orur Help page. Once you sink a battleship, you will view two stars next ot he battleship in the right-side panel. Once all battleships are sunk, you will receive the Trophy for that Difficulty Level.

The difficulty levels differ in terms of the number of battleships that you must sink and the regions of the periodic table in which they are hiddden. The table below describes the distinctions between difficulty levels.

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