SubtleGame: pilot study at our Bologna ‘node’
In March, our team had the opportunity to visit one of our 'VR nodes' located within the laboratory of Associate Professor Emanuele Paci at the Department of Physics, University of Bologna. This visit marks the beginning of our data collection phase for our pioneering research into sensing the properties of interactive molecular simulations in virtual reality.
During this visit we piloted our SubtleGame, a gamified extension of our software suite, NanoVer. In the game, participants are tasked with completing molecular manipulation challenges of varying complexities.
The insights gained from this pilot study are now being used to develop SubtleGame further, with the aim of releasing the game to the general public in a large-scale citizen science study.
Fancy a go yourself? Keep an eye on our news feed!
A sneak peak into other IRL projects…
The data collected from this pilot study also contributes significantly to other ongoing research projects at the IRL! Specifically, the molecular trajectories—detailed recordings of the dynamics of the molecules as players complete the tasks—are gathered for each participant. Our cross-application strategy involves leveraging these datasets to train sophisticated AI models to complete molecular manipulation tasks.
A first-person in-game perspective of a player completing the simplest of the molecular manipulation tasks in SubtleGame: threading a methane molecule through a nanotube.
