Alchemy goes for the gold

Alchemy in actionIn late May, this Newscripster and two of her nerdiest friends visited the Houston Museum of Natural Science. The museum’s recently revamped and expanded matter and motion hall is full of delightful physics and chemistry interactives, including a periodic table dance floor. But the highlight of our visit turned out to be a touchscreen game in a small back gallery designed to look like a 16th-century alchemist's workshop.The game, called Alchemy in Action, involves combining various substances in a quest to discover new elements and compounds. It starts with fire, earth, air, and water, and every new discovery gets added to the players’ inventory of options to work with. The combinations become increasingly sophisticated as players unlock new substances and techniques.For example, burning wood turns it into ash. Combining ash with water makes lye, which can be combined with fat to make soap or electrolyzed to make elemental sodium. The game concludes when the players find all 63 elements on Dmitri Mendeleev's 1869 periodic table.“The chemistry hall is very forward looking, but at the same time, we wanted to have a gallery that takes you back to the alchemy days,” exhibit designer Paul Bernhard tells Newscripts.Collaboration is a defining feature of the game. The kiosk accommodates up to three players independently experimenting and adding discoveries to a shared periodic table. If one person leaves in the middle of the game, another can hop in and pick up where they left off. Bernhard says that design was an intentional