In March 14 2021, OutLab, with the help of CMAT Junior Group, offered a small escape room entitled "The Life of Pi" to the schools that visited the University of Minho. This escape room was enlarged and resulted in the activity
A more complete escape room, available to the public in the Europeans Researcher's Night, in sessions of a maximum of 30 minutes, that took place in September 30 2021. The enthusiasm of the public excited us to create a longer and more elaborate escape room.
Both activities, with a small component of mathematical knowledge and a challenge to logical reasoning, are now available by request to be applied in schools or in the Centre/Department of Mathematics.
These rooms, “Numbers for Everyone” and “Spherical cubes”, are games with an enigmatic component where participants must cooperate and work as a team to overcome various challenges related to cryptographic systems and codes or to the cubic foam problem. It is a fact that escape rooms have been gaining popularity among young audiences in recent years. With a playful and interactive approach, by integrating mathematics into an immersive and engaging environment, escape rooms spark interest in the field, promote active learning, and develop fundamental skills.
A team of faculty, researchers and students from CMAT visited Carlos Amarante Secondary School (ESCA) in March 2023 and offered an escape room experience, which was doubly set up in two rooms. Due to demand, sessions expanded and the team came back to ESCA in June, involving 445 students in total. The final evaluation is highly favorable: one of the primary goals was to overcome the difficulty of having high school students participate in the outreach activities proposed at the University of Minho.
Spherical Cubes, introduced at European Researcher’s Night 2023, drew full attendance, blending fun and intellect.
Some of the materials and posters used in both escape rooms were funded within the scope of FCT projects UIDP/00013/2020 and UIDB/00013/2020.