A virtual world for exploring the interactions of atoms is described. The program was created in order to provide an alternative to traditional meth- ods of teaching chemistry to pre-college students. A haptic interface allows a user of the program to experience a recreation of the forces that would be pre- sent during real world atomic interactions. A first order simulation of atomic in- teraction is described, sufficiently simple that real-time calculations may be performed with the model. The program underwent preliminary testing during a hands-on demonstration. Based on initial feedback from users, an experiment was designed to evaluate the benefits of haptic feedback in assembling mole- cules. The results show that by providing force feedback, it is possible to de- crease the amount of time required to create a simple molecule in a virtual envi- ronment. The next phase of testing will be to demonstrate the utility of the simulator in an elementary school classroom.
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