Mark Chen University of Washington

@mcdanger | markchen@uw.edu

MAPPING GAMING PRACTICE TO SCIENTIFIC PRACTICE

PARTNERSHIP •  UW Computer Science & Engineering

•  Center for Game Science (CGS) •  Zoran Popović, Seth Cooper, Erik Anderson, and Yun-En Liu

•  UW Learning Sciences •  Advancing Games as Innovative Learning Environments

(AGILE) •  Philip Bell, Andrew Shouse, John Bransford, Nancy Vye, Mark

Chen, and Theresa Horstman

•  UT Austin •  Taylor Martin and Carmen Petrick

•  Funded by DARPA Engage Program

FOLDIT

WHAT DO PLAYERS DO IN FOLDIT?

PLAYER SOLUTIONS SCORE

TIME

SCORE

TIME

PLAYER SOLUTIONS  

PLAYER SOLUTIONS  SCORE

TIME

PLAYER SOLUTIONS  SCORE

TIME

PLAYER SOLUTIONS  SCORE

TIME

PLAYER SOLUTIONS  SCORE

TIME

PLAYER SOLUTIONS  SCORE

TIME

HOW DO PLAYERS GET BETTER? COMMUNITY!

HOW DO PLAYERS GET BETTER? COMMUNITY! •  Community around Foldit is rich and engaging

HOW DO PLAYERS GET BETTER? COMMUNITY! •  Community around Foldit is rich and engaging

HOW DO PLAYERS GET BETTER? COMMUNITY! •  Community around Foldit is rich and engaging

HOW DO PLAYERS GET BETTER? COMMUNITY! •  Community around Foldit is rich and engaging

BIOCHEMISTRY NOT JUST FOR EXPERTS…

•  Emergence of skilled players with little biochemistry training

•  Game players beat protein experts

Prior knowledge of biochemistry

None

High school / Basic

One undergraduate course

Majored in biology or similar

PhD in chemistry or organic chemistry

PhD in biochemistry 30 years ago

Professionally involved

WHAT DOES IT MEAN TO PLAY FOLDIT? To become competitive, one has to do two things:

1)  learn the science

2)  participate in the community

WHAT DOES IT MEAN TO PLAY FOLDIT? To become competitive, one has to do two things:

1)  learn the science

2)  participate in the community

FUTURE PLANS •  In-depth studies of gaming practice and expert practice

•  Assess engagement and learning

•  Foldit •  Refraction •  DNA •  and more!

FOLDIT TEAM THANKS: UW Dept. of Computer Science UW Dept. of Biochemistry

Zoran Popović Seth Cooper Adrien Treuille Janos Barbero

David Baker Firas Khatib Andrew Leaver-Fay

Kathleen Tuite David Salesin Joshua Snyder Daniel Suskin Philipp Krähenbühl

Alex Cho Snyder Michael Beenen Hao Lü Lu Sien Tan Ilya Makedon Sean Gottschalk

Mathias Hällman Jeff Flatten Eric Butler Jeehyung Lee Ming Yao Alex Chia

Chris Carrico Philip Bradley Ian Davis James Thompson David Kim Rhiju Das

Yutong Zhao Sayer Herin David Anderson Benjamin Bethurum

Supported by: UW Center for Game Science UW Baker Lab HHMI DARPA Microsoft Adobe

… and all our players!