Enter the world of particle physics with the newly-launched ATLAScraft! Players can explore the CERN campus, shrink down to the size of a particle, and even conduct their own “experiments” in educational minigames.

Built within the wildly successful game platform Minecraft, this new world recreates the laboratory using 3D blocks. Its centrepiece is a stunning scale model of the ATLAS experiment, complete with underground service caverns and tunnels for the Large Hadron Collider (LHC). Players can slice open the experiment to reveal layers of subdetectors, watch particles meet at the ATLAS collision point, and play games that explain how each subdetector works.

This virtual world was created by UK secondary school students together with ATLAS physicists, in a project funded by the UK’s Science and Technology Facilities Council (STFC) and the ATLAS Experiment. With the help of experts, the students became the teachers in ATLAScraft, turning their new knowledge of the detector and particle physics into engaging activities for players.

“They did an incredible job in creating fun, interactive games and simulations that explain how we collect data from the LHC's high-energy particle collisions using the ATLAS detector,” says Mark Pickering, ATLAS physicist with Oxford University who liaised with the schools. “Now anyone can visit ATLAS, learning about particle physics from the comfort of their own home.”

Explore the ATLAScraft world today! Click here to download the game (licensed copy of Minecraft required).

For more information about the ATLAScraft project and its students, read the STFC press release: CERN as you’ve never seen it before, 13 December 2017.