After learning about basic encryption techniques, students will engage in a two-part team competition, in which they will design their own encryption algorithm in the first part, and in the second, they will race to figure out the other teams’ algorithm(s) before theirs gets cracked. Best suited for a 8th or 9th grade classroom, this lesson/game can serve as a study of functions, as this notation is what will be used for the algorithms. Since the goal isn’t to decrypt, but rather to figure out what the encryption algorithm is, all students will encrypt the same phrase. In a bonus round, all students will team up in an attempt to stump the teacher, and come up with an algorithm that they can’t crack.