Entanglion | Justin D. Weisz

Entanglion is a cooperative board game for two players, designed at IBM Research. It introduces players to the fundamental concepts of quantum computing: qubits, superposition, entanglement, measurement, and error. It also introduces the different hardware and software components involved in building a real quantum computer.

Players work together to navigate the three galaxies of the quantum universe, avoid detection by the defense mechanisms left behind by an ancient race, and rebuild a quantum computer. Entanglion has been used in hundreds of high school and university classrooms as part of their curriculum, and an evaluation we conducted demonstrated its pedagogical value (Weisz et al., 2018). Designing Entanglion also got us thinking about how people will interact with quantum computers more broadly, which led us to outline research topics for the emerging field of human-quantum computer interaction (Ashktorab et al., 2019).

The Entanglion game board and player setup.

Entanglion’s design files can be downloaded and printed from GitHub. A boxed copy can also be purchased from The Game Crafter.

References

2019

CHI

Thinking Too Classically: Research Topics in Human-Quantum Computer Interaction

Zahra Ashktorab, Justin D. Weisz, and Maryam Ashoori

In Proceedings of the 2019 CHI Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems, CHI 2019, Glasgow, Scotland, UK, May 04-09, 2019, 2019

DOI Bib PDF

@inproceedings{AshktorabWA19,
  author = {Ashktorab, Zahra and Weisz, Justin D. and Ashoori, Maryam},
  title = {Thinking Too Classically: Research Topics in Human-Quantum Computer Interaction},
  booktitle = {Proceedings of the 2019 {CHI} Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems, {CHI} 2019, Glasgow, Scotland, UK, May 04-09, 2019},
  pages = {256},
  publisher = {{ACM}},
  year = {2019},
  url = {https://doi.org/10.1145/3290605.3300486},
  doi = {10.1145/3290605.3300486},
}

2018

CHI PLAY

Entanglion: A Board Game for Teaching the Principles of Quantum Computing

Justin D. Weisz, Maryam Ashoori, and Zahra Ashktorab

In The Annual Symposium on Computer-Human Interaction in Play, CHI PLAY 2018, Melbourne, VIC, Australia, October 28-31, 2018, 2018

DOI Bib PDF

@inproceedings{WeiszAA18,
  author = {Weisz, Justin D. and Ashoori, Maryam and Ashktorab, Zahra},
  title = {Entanglion: {A} Board Game for Teaching the Principles of Quantum Computing},
  booktitle = {The Annual Symposium on Computer-Human Interaction in Play, {CHI} {PLAY} 2018, Melbourne, VIC, Australia, October 28-31, 2018},
  pages = {523--534},
  publisher = {{ACM}},
  year = {2018},
  url = {https://doi.org/10.1145/3242671.3242696},
  doi = {10.1145/3242671.3242696},
}