In 2020 Exciton Science was the recipient of a $13,000 National Science Week Grant to hold a pop-up Dark Lab in the Melbourne CBD. The space was planned to be a fully immersive experience under UV lighting for participants from the general public and in school groups to explore new aspects of emerging solar and lighting technology and enjoy a visual spectacle. However, unsurprisingly, these plans were abandoned as Melbourne entered its second phase of major restrictions. So just like the rest of the world we needed to pivot, and instead, we were able to draw inspiration from the pinball machine entry to our Sci-comm-petition to develop a COVID-safe National Science Week initiative. Despite all the changes we still managed to have an engaging and fun National Science Week!
Working with educational online game producers at Melbourne-based Mighty Serious, we enlisted the help of members of our research teams to guide the development of three arcade-style games. The series, collectively titled ‘It’s on like Exciton!’ feature simple goals, colourful graphics and is all linked to our science. ‘Exciting lasers!’ represents the process of molecular excitation inside a laser cavity, ‘Power Match’ challenges players to line up and purify a quantum dot sample into certain sizes and colours, while ‘Solar Slider’ explores how to build a solar energy device from the nanoscale up to a finished product by matching and lining up atoms, molecules, polymers and more.
We worked closely with Mighty Serious to ensure the games were engaging and challenging for children as young as eight all the way up to adults.
To explore our work further and support the scientific curriculum links for pedagogical use, profiles of six of our PhD students accompany the games as well as a worksheet with student activities and questions. These were created alongside the current secondary science curriculum to help inspire and represent the application of fundamental scientific concepts in the solar energy and lighting space.
The games were released during National Science Week and promoted heavily through our social media channels and with the help of our node universities. We achieved national exposure for the games when they featured on ABC’s Good Game Spawn Point – a show about gaming for children. The games sections of our website have received more than 4,500 pageviews and will remain on our website indefinitely to encourage new and returning users to participate.
Professor Jared Cole from RMIT was on the panel of the 2020 ACEMs National Science Quiz.
During National Science Week Professor Jared Cole from RMIT took a starring role on the panel of the ACEMS-hosted National Science Quiz. This online event was an exploration of 10 fun and challenging scientific questions. More than 200 teams logged in across Australia and 10 prize packs, including Exciton Science-branded merchandise, were sent to participants.
Dr Siobhan Bradley from the University of Melbourne was a Soapbox Science Star during National Science Week.
Postdoctoral researcher Dr Siobhan Bradley was one of the headline acts for the 2020 Soapbox Science event. Appearing online, Siobhan delivered a talk titled ‘Photon Pokémon’ and informed audiences about how to ‘catch em all’ including using engaging flip-book animations, glowing lights and tonic water visual tricks. Her talk was highly engaging and prompted some great questions from her audience about the potential directions of emerging solar and lighting technologies.