The Chemical Heritage Foundation (CHF) has achieved global success with its first digital game, ChemCrafter. The ChemCrafter app has been downloaded by more than 360,000 gamers in 126 countries in five months, according to CHF.
CHF says it has the largest public collection of chemistry sets in the world. Hundreds of oral histories of leading scientists who grew up in the mid-20th century are archived at the museum. Many of the scientists credit their childhood chemistry sets with sparking their interest in science. With ChemCrafter, CHF hopes to make the experience of the chemistry set widely available in the 21st century.
Russia leads all countries with 181,000 downloads of ChemCrafter. Five other countries have more than 10,000 downloads, led by Thailand with 35,000; China with 31,000; the United States with 25,000, Ukraine with 12,000 and Malaysia with 11,000. Sixteen other countries have more than a thousand downloads, including eight countries in Asia and six in Europe plus Canada and Saudi Arabia. The top 22 countries have more than 320,000 downloads. 104 countries have downloaded an additional 40,000 games.
“We wish we knew why ChemCrafter is popular where it is popular,” says Shelley Wilks Geehr, director of CHF’s Roy Eddleman Institute. “Our best guess is that countries that have a strong science education program for students ages 10 to 16 who have limited disposable income are the best places for a free science app. But there could be many other factors at work.”
For more information, visit: www.chemheritage.org