Adrian Chapman ‘25 is breaking grounds and combining his passions of both genetics and biology by creating a new learning tool, which doubles as a game! His new innovation allows the user to experiment with both of these subjects, all while growing their own virtual garden. Chapman shares:
“There’s a system for the simulation of single-celled organisms and also a sort of garden where you can grow plants with custom genes and see how they grow as time passes.” He explains that there is a dire need for fun learning tools, that also teach biology. It is tough work breaking such complex subjects that make these subjects accessible to the user, but Chapman seems to be unphased adding, “I know so many people that learn better through iterative play and experimentation over lecture or reading. Of course, those will always have their place but I think that rapid practice will help the user develop a strong intuition for many things, in particular genetic systems. In the end I think people have a lot of assumptions about genetic engineering and ecology so I hope this will help.” He expresses the many facets to game design, and how in all cases, it is not simply mechanics that matter, but feedback – which he says is important in any and all forms of media.
When asked if there have been any unexpected challenges, Chapman replied, “In the beginning I knew there would be regular difficulties, but I expected it to get a lot easier. The truth is that as my skills in programming have increased, certain things became easier but I only started to pursue greater challenges. For that reason, coding is really addictive.”
He has also taken to sharing the development process and patterns of the game via his YouTube channel, and has the hope of raising a small amount of funding as a bonus. He elaborates that there is an excitement that comes with this online community, and that it’s encouraging to have an online platform of fellow peers that are interested in such niche subjects. As his parting message, Chapman encourages us with the following: “I hope other people start coding, especially just for fun. It’s such a good way to develop abstract thinking and you might be surprised at how many every day problems can be solved with simple algorithms.”