Online Quantum Game Jam

IEEE Spectrum, 2019

Lecture Notes of the Institute for Computer Sciences, Social Informatics and Telecommunications Engineering, 2009

Entertainment computing is on its way getting an established academic discipline. The scope of entertainment computing is quite broad (see the scope of the international journal Entertainment Computing). One unifying idea in this diverse community of entertainment researchers and developers might be a normative position to enhance human living through social transformation. One possible option in this direction is a shared 'conscious' field. Several ideas about a new kind of field based on quantum effects are presented and discussed. Assuming that social transformation is based on a shared collective unconscious I propose designing entertainment technology for a new kind of user experience that can transform in a positive manner the individual unconscious and therefore the collective unconscious as well. Our ALICE project can be seen as a first attempt in this direction.

Educational games are a creative, enjoyable way for students to learn about technical concepts. We present Entanglion, a board game that aims to introduce the fundamental concepts of quantum computing – a highly technical domain – to students and enthusiasts of all ages. We describe our iterative design process and feedback from evaluations we conducted with students and professionals. Our playtesters gave positive feedback on our game, indicating it was engaging while simultaneously educational. We discuss a number of lessons we learned from our experience designing and evaluating a pedagogical game for a highly technical subject.

Electronic Journal of E Learning, 2014

This paper presents results from the design and testing of an educational version of Quantum Moves, a Scientific Discovery Game that allows players to help solve authentic scientific challenges in the effort to develop a quantum computer. The primary aim of developing a game-based platform for student-research collaboration is to investigate if and how this type of game concept can strengthen authentic experimental practice and the creation of new knowledge in science education. Researchers and game developers tested the game in three separate high school classes (Class 1, 2, and 3). The tests were documented using video observations of students playing the game, qualitative interviews, and qualitative and quantitative questionnaires. The focus of the tests has been to study players' motivation and their experience of learning through participation in authentic scientific inquiry. In questionnaires conducted in the two first test classes students found that the aspects of doing "real scientific research" and solving physics problems were the more interesting aspects of playing the game. However, designing a game that facilitates professional research collaboration while simultaneously introducing quantum physics to high school students proved to be a challenge. A collaborative learning design was implemented in Class 3, where students were given expert roles such as experimental and theoretical physicists. This significantly improved the students' feeling of learning physics compared to Class 1 and 2. Overall the results presented in this paper indicate that the possibility of participating in authentic scientific experiments, which this class of games opens, is highly motivating for students. The findings also show that the learning design in the class setting must be considered in order to improve the students' experience of learning and that various design challenges remain to be addressed even further.

Education Sciences

The teaching of quantum physics is challenging, not the least because teachers must overcome the traditional narrative approach, students must gain a conceptual understanding of fundamentals, and citizens must become aware of quantum technologies. Quantum games are powerful tools to overcome obstacles and push one’s limits without fear of failure. We report on a pilot study involving twenty high-school student volunteers, consisting of a compact intervention module on the concepts of quantum states, properties, measurement, superposition, and entanglement within the framework of the Model of Educational Reconstruction, followed by playing a game, quantum TiqTaqToe. The outcomes of this research-based learning environment are discussed via the qualitative analysis of students’ answers to two open questionnaires. We find that students grasped the concepts of superposition and, with special awareness, entanglement, the game proving effective to help students experience their implicatio...

Physical Review Physics Education Research, 2016

A virtual learning environment can engage university students in the learning process in ways that the traditional lectures and lab formats can not. We present our virtual learning environment StudentResearcher which incorporates simulations, multiple-choice quizzes, video lectures and gamification into a learning path for quantum mechanics at the advanced university level. Student-Researcher is built upon the experiences gathered from workshops with the citizen science game Quantum Moves at the high-school and university level, where the games were used extensively to illustrate the basic concepts of quantum mechanics. The first test of this new virtual learning environment was a 2014 course in advanced quantum mechanics at Aarhus University with 47 enrolled students. We found increased learning for the students who were more active on the platform independent of their previous performances.

International Journal of Designs for Learning

The abstract nature of quantum mechanics makes it difficult to visualize. This is one of the reasons it is taught in the language of mathematics. Without an opportunity to directly observe or interact with quantum phenomena, students struggle to develop conceptual understandings of its theories and formulas. In this paper we present the process of designing a digital game that supplements introductory quantum mechanics curricula. We present our design process anchored on three key challenges: 1) drawing upon students’ past experiences and knowledge of classical mechanics while at the same time helping them break free of it to understand the unique qualities and characteristics of quantum mechanics; 2) creating an environment that is accurate in its depiction of the mathematical formulations of quantum mechanics while also playful and engaging for students; and 3) developing characters that are relatable to players but also do not reinforce gender stereotypes. Our design process can ...

Reports in Advances of Physical Sciences

In this paper, we devise a slightly modified version of the vote with the wallet game used by Becchetti et al. [L. Becchetti and F. Salustri, The vote with the wallet as a multiplayer prisoner’s dilemma, CEIS Tor Vergata Research Paper No. 359, Vol. 13, Issue 10, Centre for Economic and International Studies, Rome, Italy (2015); L. Becchetti, V. Pelligra and F. Salustri, Testing for heterogeneity of preferences in randomized experiments: A satisfaction-based approach applied to multiple prisoner dilemmas, Appl. Econ. Lett. 24(10) (2017) 722–726] for the use of social media, where the player decides whether to responsibly share social knowledge or not. We follow the point of view of Bennet and Bennet [D. Bennet and A. Bennet, Social learning from the inside out: The creation and sharing of knowledge from the mind/brain perspective, in Social Knowledge: Using Social Media to Know What You Know, eds. J. P. Girard and J. L. Girard (IGI Global, 2011), pp. 1–23] according to which another...

Public Understanding of Science, 2016

Public participation in science and gamification of science are two strong contemporary trends, especially in the area of emerging techno-sciences. Involvement of the public in research-related activities is an integral part of public engagement with science and technologies, which can be successfully achieved through a participatory game design. Focusing on the participatory dimension of educational games, we have reviewed a number of existing participation heuristics in light of their suitability to characterize available mobile and browser science games. We analyzed 87 games with respect to their participatory and motivational elements and demonstrated that the majority of mobile games have only basic participative features. This review of the landscape of participative science games in the domain of life sciences highlights a number of major challenges present in the design of such applications. At the same time, it reveals a number of opportunities to enhance public engagement using science games.

Proceedings of 14th UKAIS Conference, Oxford, 2009

This paper puts forwards a new way to view how Communities of Practice (CoPs) form in environments that make heavy use of information systems. It uses a concept from Physics to suggest a new type of CoP that can exist in workplaces. In order to do that, the paper uses a simplified taxonomy for CoPs to outline the'Quantum-CoPs'. These Communities are discussed regarding their behaviour and characteristics, and their potential use as fully developed CoPs. The paper presents some preliminary findings from ...