With support from DGTIC
Coordination of Open University and Digital Education Sep 2, 2024
Living with molecules is a project that uses augmented and virtual reality and artificial intelligence (AI) to create a more intuitive learning experience. Led by Daniel Finkelstein Shapiro – and developed at the Institute of Chemistry with support from the General Directorate of Computing and Information and Communication Technologies (DGTIC) – it was selected as the winner in the 2023 call for Artificial Intelligence Research Projects of the Alliance to Promote the Development of Digital Capabilities in Mexico, which seeks to support and encourage the production of technological innovation initiatives with an emphasis on AI.
“What we want to offer the UNAM community, and Mexico, are games where people can approach, in a playful way, specific topics in science, because ultimately these types of projects are born to respond, among other things, to the improvement of teaching processes,” shared Finkelstein.
He also pointed out that “we are very attentive to what students need, because they are the ones who are learning chemistry at the moment,” and that is through the development of applications that allow them to see and interact with molecules, covering topics from organic chemistry to physical chemistry. Not only will learning benefit, but at the same time the dissemination of science will benefit, bringing the experience closer to everyone thanks to these new technologies.
One of the important challenges that Finkelstein and his development team faced was having to learn “how to program language models in artificial intelligence in order to open a new dimension to the digital objects that we are creating in virtual reality and augmented reality”, which enable a greater approximation to knowledge through coexistence.
Another of the challenges that Daniel Finkelstein considers relevant is that, in this case, the idea of augmented reality seems to be the attraction of the project, but the important thing is that there must be a basis. Therefore, in the future, it is hoped that the work of translation between molecules and objects that is made understandable will lead, through analogies, to a discovery or to new ideas in the laboratory.
Learn more at Chattya podcast from the Open University and Digital Education Coordination (CUAED).
