Escape room outreach and playing the publication game

Escape the lab Searching for a group activity to do with your lab mates at ACS Fall 2024 in Denver? Why not try out an escape room based on actual chemistry research from the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign (UIUC)? UIUC’s Molecule Maker Lab Institute (MMLI) is a research center focused on developing artificial intelligence and automation platforms for designing new materials. The institute also does a lot of community outreach. And one of their newest outreach tools is an escape room. UIUC informatics and theater students designed and built the room as part of an escape room design class, MMLI education postdoctoral scholar James Planey tells Newscripts. The students spent the fall 2023 semester working with MMLI faculty and staff to develop the puzzles and set pieces for an engaging educational experience. The official public debut of the escape room was in April 2024 at an engineering open house at