This is where I put the real stories behind StormChess.

Outside the Palm Desert Community Center before my meeting with Desert Recreation District, I first wanted a chess club because I knew I could help more kids. But having an idea for a chess club and actually starting one are two different things. To make the idea real, I knew I had to have a meeting first with the Desert Recreation District.

At first, I thought it would be pretty scary, but I was determined that I could handle it. I also thought it was going to be fun at the same time.

What Happened in the Meeting

My meeting was with Chris, DRD Recreation Specialist. I went to the front desk and saw him there. He led us to his office, and that was where we had our meeting. The first thing I noticed when I got there was his drawings. I thought he might be creative. That made me feel a little more comfortable talking to him about my own idea. When we sat down, he asked me, "What do you envision this to be?"

I liked that question because I got to explain what I thought the chess club might look like. Until then, it had mostly been an idea in my head. Now I was explaining it to someone who could actually help make it happen.

When I Knew It Was Real

I did not think DRD would actually provide a room for the club. I thought we were mostly going to talk about the idea. But as the meeting went on, we talked about what the chess club would need and what DRD could provide. Then Chris said we could use the dance room. That's when I realized that they might actually let me do it.

I used the context clues for this. If we were talking about which room we were going to use, I figured that he meant we were actually going to have our chess club there. I learned something else from the meeting too: now I know adults might actually want to hear what kids like me say.

Now We Need Chess Players

Getting a room did not mean we were finished. A chess club is not much of a chess club without players. So the next problem was figuring out how to let kids know about it. Chris made the flyers, and I went around the Coachella Valley to different places where kids and families might see them.

I gave them to people because I needed to put them up where people could see them. I felt happy doing this because I am going to get to teach people.

What Happens Next?

I am not sure yet. This is my first time helping start a chess club, so there are still things we have to figure out. I do know that kids will get to come together to play chess, and I will get to help teach them.

The first Desert Youth Chess Meet Up is September 24. Now we just need the chess players to show up.

Open the full club page

This experiment started as my simple idea: "Does playing chess before math improve math?"

Sometimes my brain feels noisy when I try to do math. But when I play chess, something changes. My mind feels calm, and I can think more clearly. So I started to wonder: "What would happen if I played chess before doing math?"

Then the experiment started once I had everything. It even led to this site!

Does chess help math and autism?

If I play chess before doing math, then it will help time, accuracy, and focus in logic puzzles. I thought this because chess would put me in a better mood and is my special interest.

I started by gathering a pencil, Apple stopwatch, blue folder with my data collection template, logic puzzle workbook, and chess.com. I changed if I did chess before or no chess before. I intentionally kept the data collection I was using the same, and the type of math I was doing. I was always doing logic puzzles. In my data collection, I measured focus (1-5 scale, where 1 means sleepy brain and 5 means full energy), accuracy (number of questions I got right), and time (how long it took in minutes).

I did 6 trials over about 1.5 months. Each trial lasted between about 5 minutes and up to a couple of hours.

What I Found

My data showed that chess improved accuracy and time. Focus in math was not improved by chess. In three of the trials, I played chess before logic puzzles. In the other three trials, I did not play chess before math.

I found that when I played chess before, for example in trial two, my time was 8.10 minutes with chess compared with 8.14 minutes without chess in trial one. In trial 5 without playing chess, the math worksheet took 14 minutes, compared with trial 4 which took me 2.14 minutes to do with chess.

For focus, trial three with chess and trial five without chess were both 5/5. This is an example of chess having no effect on focus for solving math problems. When I played chess for too long, accuracy was not improved. This was very unexpected!

My Conclusion

My hypothesis was correct and incorrect. It turns out that only time and accuracy were improved. I think I should have put 5/5 for focus all of the six trials. I did not because I thought just a little noise was going to be a distraction but it was not.

I did not do each trial in the same place or time of day so this could have affected my results. Next, I need to do 2 more trials to feel more confident with my results.

My Data

Red means no chess before. Green means chess before. These are my hand-drawn graphs showing my results.