Nanocrafter: Design and Evaluation of a DNA Nanotechnology Game

In this paper we present the design and preliminary evaluation of a new scientific discovery game, Nanocrafter. The intent of Nanocrafter is to be a citizen science platform for the discovery of novel nanoscale devices built out of selfassembling strands of DNA. The game uses DNA strand displacement rules as its basic mechanics, allowing players to construct and simulate such devices. The aim is to have a simulation accurate enough that promising devices built in the game could be synthesized and tested in the wetlab. Semi-weekly challenges defined by open-ended text prompts and rated by the community encourage players to build towards a particular type of device. Nanocrafter was released online and has run a number of challenges. We discuss the design of the game in terms of visualizations, interactions, scoring, and introductory levels, and present an evaluation of preliminary results, analyzing several devices created by players using the state-of-the-art simulator Visual DSD.

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