From Bench to Game Engine: An Instructor-Built Suite of 3D Laboratory Simulations Created with Generative AI
Year: 2026
Type: preprint
Abstract: Virtual chemistry laboratories have historically required either a commercial subscription or a software development team, placing custom simulations out of reach for most instructors. I report the design and construction of a suite of browser-playable 3D laboratory simulations for a non-science-majors chemistry course that has no formal laboratory component — density of an unknown metal, pH of common solutions, double replacement reactions, separations by paper chromatography, and physical and chemical changes — that I built alone in the Unity game engine, with no prior game-development experience, using a large-language-model coding assistant connected directly to the engine. Each lab pairs a 3D fume hood, rendered by a Unity WebGL build, with an HTML worksheet that checks readings, assigns per-student unknowns, and prints a one-page report; the answer data lives in the compiled build rather than in the page, so students cannot read it from the source. The labs serve two purposes: laboratory experience for students who would otherwise have none, and continuity of instruction when hurricane closures disrupt the weekly schedule. I describe the development workflow, the division of labor between instructor and AI, the design decisions that keep the simulations chemically honest, the time and cost involved, and the limitations encountered. All builds, worksheet pages, and prelab reviews are freely available on GitHub. The approach offers a reproducible path for instructors to author their own laboratory simulations: the five described here were built in about one month.
Source: ChemRxiv
Author: John Picione
Institution: Daytona State College
Language: English
Subfield: Education
Field: Social Sciences
Domain: Social Sciences
SDG: Quality education
Open Access status: green
OpenAlex ID: W7223444808