Hi,
Raffles Institution (RI) student team has won prize in Asia-Pacific contests with “Labbench”, a Virtual Lab that can be used for safety lessons. What would you get when copper sulphate are poured into a beaker and heated with a bunsen burner? Using Labbench, you could find out what the results is, even without switching on the burner’s gas. All that is needed is a quick drag-and-drop action in this virtual two-dimensional chemistry laboratory. Anyhow, the color of blue crsytals formed by heating copper sulphate solution is Blue.
After discussion and an interview with a chemistry teacher, the group of students decided to create a virtual lab as a tool to teach lab safety. This is like giving students a sandbox to play with, so that they wont accidentally kill themselves in the lab. The worst that can happen when a student mixes acid with metal in the virtual lab, for example, is getting an error message. But in the real world, an explosion may result.
While the team has made the lab as life-like as possible, the boys say it is not meant to replace real experiements.
Can’t wait to take a look at the “Labbench”.
Sean
