Anastasia Bolshakova, Dmitry Bagrov, Anna Protopopova

Lomonosov Moscow State University

Since 2 April, 2012, during three weeks, high school student from all parts of Russia took part in the first online competition game in field of Nanoscience “NanoQuest “Detective Story in the University”. The competition was organized by the company “Advanced Technologies Center” (ATC) in the connection with RUSNANO School League and Lomonosov Moscow State University. The main goal of the game was to show high school students that science is very interesting and quite boring.

The NanoQuest consisted of six questions related to one detective storyline about two high school children – Andrew and Marina, who were waiting for Professor in his University lab. Each question is a new mystery, and children, step by step nearer to the outcome... Any high school student could help Andrew and Marina, solving each question with them.

Over two hundred students took part in the competition. The first question of the NanoQuest is performed in Figure. Guess the word in English. This task is the simplest one. But the second question has caused difficulties, and the third was the most difficult.

In the sixth question, it was necessary to look at the site of ATC company (en.nanoscopy.ru) in the section "scan line". Here you could find real-time online data received on the probe microscope "FemtoScan", the image of a dragonfly, made in the lithography mode.

Online Quest was a huge success. Finding the search keyword, the children wanted to find out what it means and what has to nanotechnology. Here are some comments from participants of the contest:

"Hurrah! I did it! Now go on to Wikipedia! It's time to find out what that word means!"

"This is ingenious! When the end came at last, I long laugh: how really simple it was! "

Teachers are also not left behind, and commended the project. Here Anatoly Shperh wrote in his blog, commenting on the second task of the NanoQuest: "How often we teach in the "buttons", at least the algorithms of work, and almost never to set such research tasks. It’s a pity".

Fig. The first question of the NanoQuest. Guess the word in English.