UCL team creates ice-structure game for iPhone

The exhibition showcases cutting-edge research and is part of a wider festival of science to mark the Society’s 350th anniversary.

The team from the London Centre for Nanotechnology, UCL Chemistry, and UCL Physics and Astronomy created the game as part of their exhibit about the mysteries of water.

They worked with a software development company to design Waterfall, an iPhone application that teaches players about ice and nanoscience.

Waterfall is part of ’A molecule’s eye view of water’, the team’s exhibit examining the properties of water at the nanoscale through simple demonstrations, videos, games and interactive computer simulations.

Prof Angelos Michaelides (London Centre for Nanotechnology and UCL Chemistry) said: ’We wanted to make a game that was fun to play and taught the player some of the basic principles about the structure of ice.

’To do this we teamed up with the Koolistov software-development company and developed a fun game in which the user builds an ice crystal out of individual water molecules.

’Although water ice is a common everyday material, water molecules are arranged inside ice crystals in a surprisingly complex manner. This game teaches people some of the basic ’rules’ of how water molecules are arranged in ice crystals.

’During the 10 days of the exhibition we will run a competition and award prizes to the people who get the best scores in the game.’

The Royal Society’s Summer Science Exhibition takes place at the Southbank Centre in London from 25 June to 4 July.