Orion Chemistry

Organic chemistry students often struggle with chirality, but Orion Chemistry makes it easier. View molecules in 3D and take quizzes to master chirality—transforming how you learn and understand it.

Comment

Inspiration

Our inspiration came from our teacher, Mr. McLeod, who taught us about chirality in a unique way, by taking off his shoes and socks and showing the achirality of his socks. we wanted to build a more engaging way for students to understand this concept.

What it does

Orion Chemistry is a virtual reality app that allows students to visualize and interact with molecules in 3D space. With a focus on chirality, the app lets users manipulate molecular structures, view them from different angles, and test their understanding through short quizzes. The immersive VR experience can help students grasp abstract chemistry concepts more intuitively.

How we built it

The app was developed using C# and Unity, for the VR app. For the website, we used Node.js and IntelliJ to build it, and deployed with terraform on AWS.

Challenges we ran into

We faced three main challenges:

  1. None of us had developed a VR app before, and only one of us had experience with C#.
  2. We had to drive to downtown KC in the middle of the competition for an FTC meet.
  3. This was our first hackathon, so we had to quickly adapt to the pace and collaborate effectively.

Accomplishments we're proud of

We successfully built a working VR app, won our FTC meet, and collaborated as a team to troubleshoot and solve problems in real-time.

What we learned

We learned C#, Unity VR development, website deployment, 3D modeling, and gained a deeper understanding of chemistry, particularly chirality.

What's next for Orion Chemistry

We believe this app could significantly help students, so we're excited to expand it. Future plans include developing an algorithm to import molecules, creating a custom molecule creation feature, and building a large test bank. We would also like to port it to Andriod to help make the app more accessible. We’d also love to enhance and fix Chemordle (Chemistry Wordle) for a fun, educational experience.

Share this project:

Updates