Escape room demonstration
For this session the Ecsite conference's GameLab space will be turned into an escape room: a game in which participants are confined to a room and must solve puzzles to successfully escape within a certain time frame.
Escape rooms are a huge buzz in popular culture and are popping up in cities around the world - quite rightly so. Well designed escape rooms are challenging in the right amount, offer a mix between luck and brain, allow for group interactions and are thus a great form of entertainment.
Following the demonstration we will discuss the potential implementation of escape rooms in museums and other informal learning environments. How do we stand up to the design levels of commercial escape rooms and address additional design concerns such as educational context, links to existing exhibitions, mobility and accommodation of big groups?
Suggestion: attend the Escape games: an inspiration for science communication? panel discussion early on the same day before enjoying this demonstration and practical session.
Wondering what the GameLab is? This is our definition for the Ecsite conference. Don't hesitate to pop by during one of the drop-in slots!
Facilitator
Director HKD (Design studio UK)
Session speakers
Lecturer in Science Education
University of Southampton
Ran built several scientific escape rooms in a wide range of contexts including converting museum exhibitions to escape rooms, high school outreach activities and science festivals for the general public. Ran will share some design principles gained when working in the different contexts.
Chemistry Teacher and Trainer
Katzir High School and Weizmann Institute of Science
Malka is an expert in bringing difficult chemistry knowledge to the general public in a fun and experiential way. Malka will discuss her experiences in creating a mobile escape unit called "Chemical escape" is an activity for high school students that brings the extremely popular genre of "escape rooms" into the chemistry classroom. In a project by the National Chemistry Teachers' Center at the Weizmann Institute of Science in Israel, a mobile escape room was designed and built to suit secondary schools.
Claudia is an expert in building informal outreach activities for a wide range of audiences ranging from children to the general public. Claudia designed several escape rooms for science festivals and summer camps.
Experiential Learning Spaces Developer & Designer
EdQuest - Twist in Education
Yael is an expert in experiential learning in both formal and informal settings. She designs “new generation” learning spaces for schools, and educational scientific escape rooms for museums, using the exhibition as the theme of the escape room challenges.
Yael will to talk about the museum as a platform for educational escape rooms, and how this option can help the museum be exposed to more audiences.
Birmingham
United Kingdom
John is a real-world game designer who has previously worked in the games industry & academia. Now he designs & develops interactive experiences for public spaces e.g. festivals & museums.
He is currently building an escape room for a UK castle, an escape room inspired theatrical experience (players on a live stakeout in a car ) & consulting on other escape room experiences worldwide.
John will discuss the technical issues of building an escape room in the museum environment.
