Rebecca Yerworth (MPBE)

Asynchronous Submission

How do you move an interdisciplinary lab project for ~250 students online?Somebody mentioned that UCL has access to Minecraft, Education Edition* …. I had visions of students ‘immersed’ in a Minecraft world, interacting with each other and a 3d simulation of the lab.
Hours of work later, students were donning virtual personal protective equipment and twiddling dials to customise and take measurements from their ‘bioreactor’, working in teams of 6 to decide on the best parameter settings to use.
I reflect on the joys, sorrows and successfulness of turning this vision into (virtual) reality – and what needs doing if it is used again next year.

*Minecraft is a popular computer game where players modify a virtual world made of cubes, interacting with animals and items. The education edition comes with features for ‘classroom’ management and writing code to customise the behaviour of blocks, items and interactions.

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