Foldit Mixes Collaborative 3D Protein Modeling with Competition and Games
Foldit asks players to rotate proteins in three dimensions, assemble side chains, shape the backbone, and generate stabilizing hydrogen bonds--all essential tasks as the players contribute towards University of Washington protein scientist David Baker's goals of curing HIV, developing various vaccines, and more. It's not a virtual world, and it's not quite reaching the holy grail of massive collaborative design, but it is getting there (Forgive me: it's Friday and this is really neat). Also, it's incredibly popular. After a lot of launch-day press today, the site's blog noted that "Thanks to our folders all over the world, our site is slowing down. Please be patient if you can't log in at first. It may take a few tries to get into the game. In the meantime, we will post an update today which should make the experience much smoother for all of you."
Incorporating gameplay--users can work together, compete, create social network-style profiles--seems to be a big draw, asking users to then turn their natural ability to navigate 3D spaces to problems that computers can't solve.
This really reminds me of the Studio Wikitecture projects, aimed at making it easy to use Second Life as a 3D wiki for collaboration in architecture. There users were really working in real-time collaboration with similarly altruistic goals--designing a health facilities building for Nepal in a contest sponsored by the Open Architecture Network. That's one of the benefits of virtual worlds, using the 3D environment to make it easier to work together, and there have already been plenty of examples of researchers showing off proteins and molecules in Second Life for education.
Foldit expands to an even larger audience, blending crowdsourcing, casual games, and 3D collaboration. I'd love to see this blended with an actual virtual world.
Comments