(set: $name to (prompt: "What is your name?", "Your Name Here"))
It's a crisp Monday morning at the Institute for Wildly Fantastic Sciences and Technologies. You are following your teacher and an Institute employee. The Institute employee is leading a rather dull tour. You find yourself dully picking at your stick-on name tag, which reads '$name' in your hasty handwriting.
This is your class field trip...and it was supposed to be cool. You start to lag behind the tour, and they turn a corner without you. Before you can be afraid, you notice a door that reads AUTHORIZED ACCESS ONLY...you crack the door open and peek inside...
[[I am curious! -> Yes Curious]]
[[I don't care... -> No Curious]]
<audio src="https://nanoadventure-beta.neocities.org/Sound%20Files/Casual%20Theme%20Loop%201.mp3" autoplay loop>
You press through the door and take a deep breath...no alarms go off. Your shoe, a bit damp from the snow outside, makes a loud squeak but nobody seems to notice. You close the door behind you and look around the lab.
It looks like a busy place, with storage on every wall and slightly messy work spaces everywhere else. Some of the objects are familiar -- beakers, testubes, gloves. Others are devices so mysterious you never could guess what they were for -- mysterious black boxes. You decide a self-tour is as good as any other tour and start to look around...
[[Investiage Bench->Bench]]
[[Investiage Hood->Hood]]
[[Investigate Cabinets->Cabinets]]
<audio src="https://nanoadventure-beta.neocities.org/Sound%20Files/Hidden%20Fear.mp3" autoplay loop>
You sigh, reconsider, and turn to leave. Curiosity killed the cat, after all.
Speaking of cats, as you start to try to find your tour group again, you notice a black cat sneak around the corner and dip into the lab you just left.
If you don't belong in a lab, a cat certainly doesn't!
[[Chase that cat! ->Cat Clumsy]]
<audio src="https://nanoadventure-beta.neocities.org/Sound%20Files/Casual%20Theme%20Loop%201.mp3" autoplay loop>You turn to the big chemistry bench in the middle of the room. There, you see some test tubes in a rack, some centrifuge tubes with hand-written labels, and a rather strange looking device.
The bench is scattered with some vials, holding powders and liquids of various colors. You pick one up and shake the wine-colored liquid in it. It's labeled "gold" although...it certainly isn't gold in color. You gently set it back and notice a number of small instruments. A centrifuge, a basin full of water with a timer knob on it, and a device labeled as a "spectrophotometer". Finally, you notice the last device, which stands out among the group on the bench.
Unlike the other instruments you see, this one has no logo bearing the name of a scientific company. Instead, there is just a sticker with a handwritten string of numbers. You get the feeling that this device has been made by the scientists in this lab. There is a panel with some knobs and sliders and an analog number read out that is set to "100". Next to the knob, a scrap of paper is taped with a quickly scribbed "nm". You recognize this abbreviation to mean "nanometers" but just can't imagine what his device could be for...
[[Check out the chemicals!->Cabinets]]
[[What's in the hood?->Hood]]
[[Fiddle with instrument->Button]]
[[Eh, leave. This is boring.->Clumsy]]
<audio src="https://nanoadventure-beta.neocities.org/Sound%20Files/Hidden%20Fear.mp3" autoplay loop>
You walk to the back wall of the lab and what looks like a table with a glass shield on it. You slide open the glass shield and peer at the objects inside. While everything else in the lab is eerily still, this fume hood is lively with movement.
You see round flasks, stirring rapidly and automatically. Some of these round flasks seem just cloudy. They are labeled in permanent marker as "MSNs". Next to them, though, you notice some rapidly spinning red liquid, curiously marked as "gold". A syringe sits in a rubber cap in one of the necks of the flasks. Finally, a long glass tube is drip, drip, drip, dripping some liquid into a beaker below it. The liquid in the beaker below stirs, the movement erasing the trace of color change you're just able to catch as the drop meets the liquid in the beaker.
While this is the liveliest part of the lab, you get the distinct feeling that you shouldn't touch these experiments while they are in progress.
[[Check out the chemicals!->Cabinets]]
[[What's on the bench?->Bench]]
[[Meh. Leave.->Clumsy]]
<audio src="https://nanoadventure-beta.neocities.org/Sound%20Files/Hidden%20Fear.mp3" autoplay loop>One of the lab walls is made up entirely of shelves and cabinets with glass windows. You peer through at the bottles that make their home there. They're set up in plastic bins that organize sets of bottles into groups. You peer at the label that reads in printed letters 'MESOPOROUS SILICA NANOPARTICLES SYNTHESIS SUPPLIES'. You recall that 'silica' means sand. Small sand? With pores? You contemplate the concept...isn't sand already pretty small?
Nothing else in this bin seems familiar. You skim through labels -- cetyltrimethylammonium bromide -- a mouthful! You also spot some 'tetraethyl orthosilicate' -- also a mouthful, but you note the word silicate in it.
One shelf below, you notice a similar bin labeled 'GOLD NANOPARTICLE SYNTHESIS SUPPLIES'. However, nothing in the bin looks like gold. There are a couple vials of red liquid with dates and batch numbers on them and chemical bottles with labels like 'gold (III) chloride trihydrate'. Who knew that chemical names had roman numerals! You also spot some 'sodium hydroxide' - slightly familiar to you from some science class or other.
The rest of the cabinet isn't as well labeled, so you decide to check out something else.
[[Look at the bench ->Bench]]
[[Look at the hood->Hood]]
[[All these words are too long! Head out.->Clumsy]]
<audio src="https://nanoadventure-beta.neocities.org/Sound%20Files/Hidden%20Fear.mp3" autoplay loop>You lean in closer to inspect the device. Curious, you press the largest and most prominent button on it and feel a jolt of electricity pulse through your finger.
[[Whoa!->Shrink Description]]
<audio src="https://nanoadventure-beta.neocities.org/Sound%20Files/Hidden%20Fear.mp3" autoplay loop>You feel like your skin is compressing around your body, shrink wrapping around you. Just as it feels your skin is too tight, you feel your flesh start to compress as well. You experience waves of shrinking and compressing from the outside inwards. You notice that the room seems larger than before, and you're reminded of how rooms appeared larger to you as a young child.
Then, the room is huge.
Now it's a stadium.
Next, it's an ocean of space. A universe around you that seems impossibly large. As you look around, you notice that you're standing next to a towering device...the machine that has done this to you. You look down at the surface of the bench you're standing on and it looks now...incredibly rough, a landscape of splintered pieces of wood, interlocking to form the benchtop that has become, now, a landmass.
You realize you're now impossibly small...a nanoperson.
[[What's happened to me?-> Investigate Self]]
[[What's the giant...blob...animal?->Investigate Bacteria]]
[[Is that a robot?!?->Investigate Virus]]
<audio src="https://nanoadventure-beta.neocities.org/Sound%20Files/Space%20Cadet.mp3" autoplay loop>You sigh with boredom and try to leave. Tragically, you're clumsy and your shoes are still a little wet! On your way to leave, you slip and fall into the biggest, most prominent button on that weird device sitting on the bench...
[[Ouch!->Shrink Description]]
<audio src="https://nanoadventure-beta.neocities.org/Sound%20Files/Hidden%20Fear.mp3" autoplay loop>Your new nano-size body feels uncomfortable but there's no pain.
You start to ponder about how big you might be. Big enough to survive out here? Or not?
You see the horizon of the bench you're on. You take your first step...you feel uncomfortably dense and it seems that you have to pull your foot up with extra force. At the same time, your hands don't feel any heavier than usual, nor is it harder to hold your head up.
You feel like a gecko -- stuck to the ground. You take each step, getting used to the feeling of pulling your sneakers off the bench surface. As you reach the edge of a precipice - just a scratch in the wood - and as you start to wobble forward...you don't fall. You're stuck by the forces holding your new shrunk-down nanoshoes to the ground. At this size, static electricity and the attractive forces between surfaces have more say in your fate than gravity...thank goodness.
Before you can get too comfy in your new gecko-esque powers, you notice that there are other...creatures...
Maybe, if you can figure out what those are, you can learn more about yourself at this size...
[[Check out that blobby creature->Investigate Bacteria]]
[[Check out that big ol' robot lookin' thing->Investigate Virus]]
<audio src="https://nanoadventure-beta.neocities.org/Sound%20Files/Evil%20is%20Near%20(Looped).mp3" autoplay loop>The landscape is cluttered, though. An erratic skyline of...creatures, moving. To your horror, you realize they're all bacteria. From here, they look as tall the buildings on the Institute's campus. Some are moving, twitching and sliding and gliding around this rough and frightening world.
You approach one such creature who has recently calmed down from twitching. As you approach it, it's scale becomes clear. This creature is a bacterium, rendered in horrid detail the likes of which you never saw in textbook diagrams. It seems as tall as a six-story building but...as long an Olympic swimming pool. It's like a grotesque, long, hot dog twitching along. It's covered in smaller protrusions -- wiggling, wriggling, proteins and long chains. As frightening as it is, you might need an ally better suited to this tiny world than you. It feels like it's been an endless trek just to this creature and...
...it might take you too long to walk anywhere...maybe you could...
[[Hitch a ride!->Ride Bacteria]]
<audio src="https://nanoadventure-beta.neocities.org/Sound%20Files/Evil%20is%20Near%20(Looped).mp3" autoplay loop>You approach what appears, at first glance, to be some sort of mechanical creature. It is robot like. It is about twice your height, a towering column with a large, geometric stopper. However, it doesn't seem to move. You press both your palms against the column, the only part you can reach, and shove. It doesn't stir. Is it...alive at all?
In any case, at least maybe you scale this...creature...thing, and look for something more helpful but the whole thing also just gives you the chills.
[[Climb it for a better view!->Climb Virus]]
[[This thing is too spooky! Is there any..body..anything else around here?->Investigate Bacteria]]
<audio src="https://nanoadventure-beta.neocities.org/Sound%20Files/Evil%20is%20Near%20(Looped).mp3" autoplay loop>You wiggle your foot into some of the suface. It isn't...perfectly smooth, but it's organized. There are enough foot holds.
On top of it, you're able to steady yourself on one of the surfaces of the geometric head. You look around. The vastness is overwhelming. You feel like you can see as far as you do when looking up at the night sky but instead of those untrackable distances revealing stars and constellations...it's the shelves, cabinets, and familiar backdrop of the lab. Yet it looks further away than the Sun.
You quickly realize that walking to find rescue will take forver. As this fate seems to dawn on you, you notice your perch shaking, rumbling. You tense up and see a bacteria slamming into you at high speeds.
As the bacteria approaches, your previously steady outpost starts to come alive, with robotic like movement. You realize now that this odd creature is a bacteriophage and it's movement is due to the potential prey coming at you both...
[[Abandon Ship! -> Catch A Dust Parachute]]
[[That bacteria thing could be my ride! ->Ride Bacteria]]
<audio src="https://nanoadventure-beta.neocities.org/Sound%20Files/Evil%20is%20Near%20(Looped).mp3" autoplay loop>This bacterium is as tall as a six story building. You steady yourself to climb on to it.
You take a deep breath...this climb might be hard, but it can't be impossible. Afterall, professional rock climbers scale heights that make this look easy...right? You try to convince yourself.
Shakily, you grab for the surface of this bacterium. Your bacterium. Your future steed. You grasp both of your hands around parts of proteins sticking out of the surface and wiggle your foot into a hold. You start to climb. As you climb, it seems easier and easier -- the hand and foot holds provided to you by the bacterial proteins are plentiful. Here, the forces holding you to surfaces are your friend -- your gecko-like powers do most of the work! Suddenly, you're atop the gliding microbe.
You anchor yourself on top of the bacterium. You find it difficult to steer such an unthinking creature, but at least it moves incredibly fast. It feels like a speeding car, at least compared to how fast you could carry yourself on your nano-feet.
Now, you're able to notice some more of the landscape that one lonely lab space has become at this size...a lot of leftover experiments, some knocked over vials...
...and maybe one them has the cure for being tiny?
It seems like your chances are slim, but there's no choice -- you've got to see if anything around you can get you out of this mess. Grabbing onto a couple of the proteins on the surface of your new bacteria mount, you check the horizon and start to get the hang of steering the microbe towards...
[[That set of vials, some knocked astray->Silica]]
[[..Are those chips of glass near a laser?->Investigate SERS Substrate]]
[[What's that spilled liquid?-> Investigate Gold Nanoparticle ]]
<audio src="https://nanoadventure-beta.neocities.org/Sound%20Files/Evil%20is%20Near%20(Looped).mp3" autoplay loop>As you approach the blinking pattern, you realize, with a great flare of hope that there's another person! Your size, even! The figure stands in the shadow of the glowing blue, blinking light that he seems to manipulate.
<style> img {
max-width: 100%;
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}
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<img
src = https://nanoadventure-beta.neocities.org/Images/Carbon%20DotLG.png>
</div>
You run forward, leaping against the static eletricity holding you but falling with grace like a moonwalker, towards the human figure who seems to be comanding this blinking pattern. Unless there is a secret species of NanoHumans that you've just undiscovered, you aren't alone in your predicament anymore! As you get closer to the figure, you yell --
[[Hey! Who are you?->Talk NanoZack]]
[[Help!->Talk NanoZack]]
<audio src="https://nanoadventure-beta.neocities.org/Sound%20Files/First%20Contact%20(online-audio-converter.com).mp3" autoplay loop>(if:(history:) contains(' Catch A Dust Parachute'))[You land near these spilled over vials, which have released spheres that remind you of, well, puffed cereal. They're spheres of varying sizes, all filled with holes.]
(else:)[Rearing your bacterium into a halt, you stop near this spilled powder, which is made up of many porous spheres.]
You approach the spheres, and as you get closer, you realize that they're just large orbs, but filled with smaller holes. Most are about your size, but a couple are twice your height. The relative size of them reminds you of roadside attractions -- "World's Biggest Ball of Twine" or "Largest Rubber Band Ball" -- but now you're standing with countless spheres that rival those kitschy attractions. The holes in these spheres are varying in size but all are about the size of your hand or smaller.
Tentatively, you reach your hand out to one of these pores and slip your fingers inside, wondering if these might hold some secret. If you were your regular size, you might fear bugs or small rodents hiding in crevices like this but your boldness comes from the eerie confidence that every creature you've ever feared - including viruses and bacteria - is now larger than you.
You curl your fingers into this pore and realize you've perturbed the inside. Slick, thick liquid pours out. It doesn't seem to stick to you -- though you shake off your hand anyway -- or anything else. Nevertheless, this ooze is startling, and you seem to have released a flood of it from the pores by disrupting the surface tension inside the sphere. As it floods from more pores, you start to stumble backwards and then, turn to run and find some higher ground.
[[Let's go! The last thing you need at this size is a flood! ->Investigate NMC Sample]]
<audio src="https://nanoadventure-beta.neocities.org/Sound%20Files/Evil%20is%20Near%20(Looped).mp3" autoplay loop>Running at this scale is hazardous, at best. The benefit, though, is that your falls barely hurt -- gravity doesn't count to humans smaller than dust, apparently. Plus, you haven't gotten very far -- you can still see the porous spheres on the horizon, but you've outrun the ooze -- but the landscape has already changed. You realize you're just at the next vial over -- some other sample, set here by a scientist who never expected you to crawl all over their...what are these anyway?
You approach a pile of what looks like massive pieces of slate. They are reminiscent of sheets of shattered ice, and if you were in a drop of water, you feel they might look like cracked sheets of arctic ice, but black.
As you get closer, you notice layers in these sheets. Although the sheets are only as thick as the width of your handspan, they contain many smaller layers.
You slide your finger into one of the layers, and are easily able to scrape out a layer of atoms. They stick to your hand a bit, with a static-like charge. You shake your hand as you would after finding yourself washing your hands in a bathroom laking in paper towels, and scatter the atoms across the...ground? the table top that has become your expansive trap of a desert.
As you shake the final atoms off your hand -- freeing yourself of the chargey, staticy and electric feeling they gave you - you notice a blinking pattern of light not so far off in the distance?
[[Could that be a rescue!->Meet NanoZack]]
<audio src="https://nanoadventure-beta.neocities.org/Sound%20Files/Evil%20is%20Near%20(Looped).mp3" autoplay loop>(if:(history:) contains(' Catch A Dust Parachute'))[From above, this area looked like many vast tiles. You land between two of them, now in awe of their size and see that they are not, at this scale, smooth.]
(else:)[Your bacterial steed slows between two tiles, covered with a bumpy surface. You dismount, climbing down with more confidence than you had climbing up.]
Everything around you has been incredibly rough terrain but as you look closely at these massive tiles, more like a plaza than a floor, you notice that this surface is both rough...and yet ordered. The area you approach reminds you almost of a crop field. You see a vast and yet perfect looking grid...of golden spheres. On the spheres, are wiggling molecules. You approach the edge and notice that these wriggling molecules are no longer than your forearm and yet...they seem to have trapped a globby looking molecule within them.
You prod at the globby looking molecule and that you recognize to be protein. You saw one like this drawn on the poster in the hallway, looking a bit more "perfect" than this one that is trapped in the field of spheres.
You notice that these golden spheres seem to go on forever, and that in the crevices between them, are more proteins, trapped by the snaking molecules attached to the spheres. This is...interesting, for sure but might not help you out of here. And it wouldn't do to get your own self stuck in the crevices...the idea makes you feel even more squemish when you look up and notice that the device next to these, in letters larger than any billboard you've ever seen, is labeled "LASER".
(if:(history:) contains(' Catch A Dust Parachute'))[You grab your dust parachute and get a running start to take off and look for something else...]
(else:)[Mounting the bacteria again, you scan the scenery for another potential solution.]
[[Is that a light?->Investigate carbon dots]]
[[Back to that spilled liquid..-> Investigate Gold Nanoparticle ]]
<audio src="https://nanoadventure-beta.neocities.org/Sound%20Files/Evil%20is%20Near%20(Looped).mp3" autoplay loop>Everything crashes under you. As you grow larger, Zack waves ahead of you, indicating to run towards the edge of the bench. With each step, your stride is longer and you finally leap off the edge of the lab bench, just in time to avoid destroying it with your growing size! You're huge! You're...your regular size!
You look at Zack and laugh, relieved to have survived. The world is now smaller and yet...larger, since you know how much detail there is even beyond the microscope.
[[View End Credits->End Credits]]
<audio src="https://nanoadventure-beta.neocities.org/Sound%20Files/Game%20Over.mp3" autoplay loop>You reach out and pull another protein off the gold nanoparticle. This one seems stickier - it was a lot harder to pull it off! You roll the protein over in your hand, feeling that certain areas of it seem to be more attracted to your hands than others.
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max-width: 100%;
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}
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<img
src = https://nanoadventure-beta.neocities.org/Images/hand5.png>
</div>
Finally, you shake it off of your hand with some effort.
[[Maybe you should put that back->Nanoparticle Corona]]
<audio src="https://nanoadventure-beta.neocities.org/Sound%20Files/Evil%20is%20Near%20(Looped).mp3" autoplay loop>(if:(history:) contains(' Catch A Dust Parachute'))[From above, the blinking lights remind you a bit of airplane's guide lights. You land next to vials of these materials, blinkding faintly, with little spills of them that would be imperceptable to a normal sizes person but are like ponds to you.]
(else:)[You steer your bacteria towards these glowing columns -- vials full of liquids that seems to blink slightly with a blue-ish color. Between these towering columns is the detritus of what is in them...you take a closer look.]
The vials and puddles are filled with what look like balls of spaghetti...and the glowing light -- which is intermittent at best -- seems to be coming from the inside. You pick one up, and find it isn't very large, nor heavy. You manipulate it in your hands, noticing that it's somehwat squishy, with chains of atoms sliding past each other, making up for the force you apply to it, and the light goes out.
Reflecting on this new dimness between your hands, you notice the same bright blue color in your peripheral vision...but it seems stronger. You look into the distance and while it seems football fields away, this is something you think you could get to on foot. It seems to be blinking...in...code? It's not random like the ones in the vials, but purposeful.
[[Run towards it! ->Meet NanoZack]]
<audio src="https://nanoadventure-beta.neocities.org/Sound%20Files/Evil%20is%20Near%20(Looped).mp3" autoplay loop>You reach down and pick up the protein you shook off your hand. This time, though, you pick it up gently between your fingers trying to minimize how much of your skin is sticking to it. It is, after all, very sticky.
As you place it back onto the gold nanoparticle and it attaches itself, set comfortably on top of the molecules coating the gold surface, you check your hands for sticky residue. There is none. It seems that the force holding it to your hands was not any substance but the attractive forces between the molecules in the proteins and those on your hand.
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max-width: 100%;
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src = https://nanoadventure-beta.neocities.org/Images/Hand2.png>
</div>
Since you now know that you won't get covered in any goo, you start fiddling with the proteins on this gold nanoparticle. Some of them are easy to remove -- they pluck right off and then seem to be attracted not to the nanoparticle itself, but to the other proteins sitting on it. With some fiddling, you're able to create a fantastic structure of proteins stuck to the gold nanoparticle and each other. It reminds you a bit of a Tetris game you've played before.
You're about to start on another structure when you notice a blinking blue light in the distance...
[[What is that light!?->Meet NanoZack]]
<audio src="https://nanoadventure-beta.neocities.org/Sound%20Files/Evil%20is%20Near%20(Looped).mp3" autoplay loop>(if:(history:) contains('Investigate SERS Substrate'))["Oh, with SERS?" Zack asks, eyes lighting up, gears turning. ]
(else:)[Zack looks like he's searching his mind. "Uh, I think Becky's coming into to take some SERS data today..."]
"What...on earth..is SERS?" you ask.
"Oh, Surface Enhanced Raman Spectroscopy. I'm no expert but...Becky is. She puts all these molecules on that nanostructured substrate and it helps her find things in really small amounts."
"...so she could get a signal if we put something on the...substrate?"
"Well, yea," Zack says, and it's settled.
Having decided to send an S.O.S. signal using the Surface Enhanced Raman Substrate, you and Zack grab a bacteria to the sample area.
"What should we put in it?" He asks you.
"...I don't know. Something surprising. What are they looking for?"
"Uh...this belongs to my co-worker Becky. She's trying to find these toxins mushrooms make in like...samples of food. She's a food safety person."
"What type of food?"
"Oh, like grain."
"...so we need to tip her off that something is wrong..."
You ponder this.
"So we need to add something that doesn't look anything like grain or...poisons or whatever. Let's try..."
[[..something human. ->Myoglobin]]
[[..another drug..but not a mushroom toxin! ->Antibiotics]]
[[Ask Zack for another idea->Rhodamine]]
<audio src="https://nanoadventure-beta.neocities.org/Sound%20Files/First%20Contact%20(online-audio-converter.com).mp3" autoplay loop>
Zack sighs, "I tried that...I think the battery is out."
You slump in defeat, "Could we fix it?"
"Oh, yea, maybe if we put fresh material in. It uses this stuff called NMC. That stands for Lithium Intercalated Nickel Manganese Cobalt Oxide. "
"Intercalated?"
"It means like lithium between the layers. There's layers of nickel and manganese and cobalt, but in between them is lithium that we need to make the battery run."
(if:(history:) contains('Investigate NMC Sample'))[You remember...wait! "I think I saw something like that...we can bring it to the machine and like, recharge it, maybe?"
Zack shrugs, "Worth a shot."]
(else:)["Oh, like a lithium battery. Do you have any in the lab?"
Zack nods, "Yea, but I can't carry enough with one bacteria and myself."
You perk up.
"Hey, I can ride bacteria too. If I help, can we do it?"
Zack nods, "Yeah!" and with a high five, you're off.]
[[Onwards! ->NMC Rescue 2]]
<audio src="https://nanoadventure-beta.neocities.org/Sound%20Files/First%20Contact%20(online-audio-converter.com).mp3" autoplay loop>Zack nods. "Oh, I am...I was. I actually didn't expect that to work but, well, here you are...but I'm not sure I'm making enough light for the meter-scale folks to see us."
"Can we make more? What are these even?"
"Oh, they're called carbon dots. It's a tangle of carbon atoms bonded together and they glow...well...fluoresce...when they're hit with certain wavelengths of light."
"What wavelength?"
"Uh, UV. Ultra-violet!"
"Like...in sunscreen?" you ask.
"You bet!" replies Zack, "Those same waves that give you sun burn, well, when they hit this little carbon dot, it lights up! We're looking for light with a wavelength of between ten and four hundred nanometers."
"Well, how were you making that blinking pattern?"
"Oh, well, see I'm just kind of...waiting on a couple beams of sunlight to come by and pushing these dots in and out of the wave. It's...not very effective or bright. It could be worse...you saw it, $name."
"...so we just need more UV?"
"Yea...but I think with two of us, maybe, just maybe we could get the UV flashlight to work!"
With that, excited by the idea of rescue, Zack takes a running jump to climb and mount his bacteria and waves at you to follow.
[[Onwards!-> UV Flashlight]]
[[Whoa! Wait up!-> UV Flashlight]]
<audio src="https://nanoadventure-beta.neocities.org/Sound%20Files/First%20Contact%20(online-audio-converter.com).mp3" autoplay loop>You chase that cat into the lab. You don't see it on any of the benches or any conspicuous tails wagging from the cabinets. You bend down to look under one of the bench tops and WHACK your head on some sort of instrument.
As you put your hand up to your aching head you start to feel...
[[Not so great ->Shrink Description]]
<audio src="https://nanoadventure-beta.neocities.org/Sound%20Files/Hidden%20Fear.mp3" autoplay loop>You roll off your virus friend just as the bacteria crashes, seemingly unaware, into it. You brush yourself off and just when you're about to reflect that a tumble like that would have put you flat on your back for weeks at your usual height, the virus you were standing on starts...moving.
While you stood on it, it was an unmoving mechanical looking behemoth and now it moves quickly, as if programmed to do one thing, and seizes the side of the bacteria and slams into, injecting genetic material. The scene feels gruesome and you scramble backwards.
You grab a large fluffy amorphous object. You sneeze, and...realize, oh this is a bit of dust. You grab on to a some edges of dusty fluff and in a gust get caught up...
...all off a sudden you're para-gliding dust across the landscape of the lab bench. You notice...
[[Some turned over vials->Silica]]
[[A field of small squares that reminds you of crop fields viewed from an airplane->Investigate SERS Substrate]]
[[A mess of spilled purple and red liquids-> Investigate Gold Nanoparticle ]]
<audio src="https://nanoadventure-beta.neocities.org/Sound%20Files/Evil%20is%20Near%20(Looped).mp3" autoplay loop>(if:(history:) contains(' Catch A Dust Parachute'))[You land next to puddles of wine colored liquid.]
(else:)[Your bacterial steed slows near some puddles of wine-colored liquid.]
As you get on your feet and approach these deep red and pink and purple liquids, you realize that within them are spheres. The liquid between the spheres is just water - but the color you saw at a distance isn't coming from just water, but the effect of these spheres mixed in it.
With a closer look, you see that these spheres have wiggling branches on them.
(if:(history:) contains('Investigate SERS Substrate'))[You're reminded of the field of ordered golden spheres you saw before, but these are free, in liquid without order. These branches on them, at least a couple of them, seem to have trapped other molecules.]
(else:)[These branches on them, at least a couple of them, seem to have trapped other molecules.]
You reach out to this...globby thing...trapped in a writhing net of wormish molecules on these spheres and pull it out. You recognize it, a little bit to your own horror, as myoglobin -- a protein, in your very own blood.
Your head swims a little bit to try to configure how you're holding a protein also swimming through your shrunken veins...but...never mind..this might be fun to play with...
[[Pull another protein off the particle->Investigate Proteins]]
[[Forget it, wait - what's that...light? Mount your bacteria and head towards it!->Meet NanoZack]]
<audio src="https://nanoadventure-beta.neocities.org/Sound%20Files/Evil%20is%20Near%20(Looped).mp3" autoplay loop>The figure, a bit startled by your shout, whips his head towards you. His expression is a bit of relief but also...horror.
As soon as you're close enough to see his face clearly, and the scrambled spaghetti tangle of molecules he's holding, he asks, "What happened to you?"
[['What happened to ME? You mean what happened to US!' ->Expo1]]
[['Uh...that machine...' ->Expo2]]
<audio src="https://nanoadventure-beta.neocities.org/Sound%20Files/First%20Contact%20(online-audio-converter.com).mp3" autoplay loop>He narrows his eyes at you and says, "Oh, okay, fair enough. To us. First off - I'm Zack, I work in this lab. And you are....?," he pauses waiting for your answer.
"Oh, I'm $name", you answer, filling the silence.
"AND what happened to me, and you - $name, is the Shrink Machine."
"The Shrink Machine?" you ask, a little incredulous.
"...we probably should come up with a better name for that. Considering you look about as tall as me right now...you hit it on the same setting. You're one hundred nanometers tall, by the way. That's 100 billionths of a meter. Not a great size to get stuck at."
"How do we get...back to normal size?"
"Ah, back to the meter scale. That's the dream. Well, have you got any ideas?"
[['Aren't you blinking morse code out right here? Can we call for help?'->Carbon Dot Rescue Path]]
[['Can't we just have the machine turn us back?'->NMC Rescue Path]]
[['Uh..could we signal anybody with a laser or something brighter?'->SERS Rescue Plath]]
<audio src="https://nanoadventure-beta.neocities.org/Sound%20Files/First%20Contact%20(online-audio-converter.com).mp3" autoplay loop>
He nods, "Ah, yea, the Shrink Machine."
"That's not a very creative name for it -- and WHY would you ever have such a thing?" you ask.
"Oh, well, it's unorthodox but it's a lot easier for one of us get down on this size and then we can kind of just...synthesize the nanoparticles with our hands."
"One of you?"
"Oh...I..uh," he looks a little sheepish, "work here. As a scientist."
[['Could we blink a distress signal like the light you made?'->Carbon Dot Rescue Path]]
[['Does the Shrink Machine not go the other way?'->NMC Rescue Path]]
(if:(history:) contains('Investigate SERS Substrate'))[[['Isn't there a laser in here we could use like a, um, bat signal?'->SERS Rescue Plath]]]
(else:)[[[..is anybody going to uh, collect data anytime soon? ->SERS Rescue Plath]]]
<audio src="https://nanoadventure-beta.neocities.org/Sound%20Files/First%20Contact%20(online-audio-converter.com).mp3" autoplay loop>"...something human," Zack repeats.
"Well, she's only looking for plant stuff, right?"
"Fungus stuff," he corrects. "Proteins might work."
"..and where would we get any? I don't even want to fathom how the ones inside of me are...shrunk."
He nods, "That is a stomach-churning thought, but we have some myoglobin around here."
You mount his bacterial steed -- his seems faster than yours, and perhaps he was choosier about his ride -- and he directs it to a workspace, where clearly some protein vials have been knocked over. Together, you and Zack are able to gather up a crop of myoglobin -- looping the protein's loopy strands around your wrists. You take them back to the SERS substrate and get ready to get to work.
"Where do we put them?"
"Okay, so, the best place is going to be in the crevice between those spheres. That's where the 'hotspot' is and where we can get the most signal to Becky."
You scurry around placing myoglobin right in the crevices. Just as you climb off the substrate, you hear a noise. It's loud, rumbling, due to the difference in size.
Zack beams, "Oh she's here!"
You wait in suspense, watching Zack's coworker with less than a bug's eye view and suddenly, a flash of light towards the substrate -- the laser! - and an exclamation, "Okay, who messed with these?"
Zack giggles. Becky, looming over you, scans her lab notebook, confirming that her data taken doesn't make sense. Suddenly, her face expresses, clarity.
"Zack, you shrunk yourself again, didn't you?" she says aloud, "No point in answering, can't hear you but...I'll reverse the machine..."
She fiddles with the mysterious machine on the bench and suddenly...[[Whoa!->END GAME Rescue]]
<audio src="https://nanoadventure-beta.neocities.org/Sound%20Files/First%20Contact%20(online-audio-converter.com).mp3" autoplay loop>"Huh," Zack ponders, "That's a good idea and I know we have some around. It will be a long journey, though."
"...everything is," you say.
He nods.
You mount his bacterial steed -- his seems faster than yours, and perhaps he was choosier about his ride -- and he directs it to a workspace filled with small vials. He is able to point out which is an antibiotic mixture.
"...how are we even going to carry this?"
"Ah, that's the beauty of being small. Just gather some."
Skeptically, you reach into a splash of antibiotic mixture next to the towering vial of the main batch, and find that the liquid holds itself in a sphere in your hands, held together by surface tension. It is what you imagined it would be like to hold a bubble as a child, but it doesn't pop.
"...amazing," you mumur.
You hold the sphere of your molecular S.O.S. signal on the ride back to the substrate. Once there, you and Zack dismount.
"Where do we put it?"
"Okay, so, the best place is going to be in the crevice between those spheres. That's where the 'hotspot' is and where we can get the most signal to Becky."
You scurry around pulling smaller droplets off your cache of antibiotics and shove it in there. Just as you climb off the substrate, you hear a noise. It's loud, rumbling, due to the difference in size.
Zack beams, "Oh she's here!"
You wait in suspense, watching Zack's coworker with less than a bug's eye view and suddenly, a flash of light towards the substrate -- the laser! - and an exclamation, "Okay, who messed with these?"
Zack giggles. Becky, looming over you, scans her lab notebook, confirming that her data taken doesn't make sense. Suddenly, her face expresses, clarity.
"Zack, you shrunk yourself again, didn't you?" she says aloud, "No point in answering, can't hear you but...I'll reverse the machine..."
She fiddles with the mysterious machine on the bench and suddenly...[[Whoa!->END GAME Rescue]]
<audio src="https://nanoadventure-beta.neocities.org/Sound%20Files/First%20Contact%20(online-audio-converter.com).mp3" autoplay loop>"Well," Zack pauses, thinking, "we could add something that would just swamp out the signal of what she already put on there."
"Like what?"
"A dye!" his eyes light up.
"...a dye?"
"Sure, yeah, we have some rhodamine. Let's go!"
You mount his bacterial steed -- his seems faster than yours, and perhaps he was choosier about his ride -- and he directs it to a workspace filled with small vials. They're bright, bright pink. Impossible to miss...and hopefully impossible to miss as a SERS signal as well.
"...how are we even going to carry this?"
"Ah, that's the beauty of being small. Just gather some."
Skeptically, you reach into a splash of dye mixture next to the towering vial of the main batch, and find that the liquid holds itself in a sphere in your hands, held together by surface tension. It is what you imagined it would be like to hold a bubble as a child, but it doesn't pop.
"...amazing," you murmur.
You hold the sphere of your molecular S.O.S. signal on the ride back to the substrate. Once there, you and Zack dismount.
"Where do we put it?"
"Okay, so, the best place is going to be in the crevice between those spheres. That's where the 'hotspot' is and where we can get the most signal to Becky."
You scurry around pulling smaller droplets off your cache of rhodamine and shove it in there. Just as you climb off the substrate, you hear a noise. It's loud, rumbling, due to the difference in size.
Zack beams, "Oh she's here!"
You wait in suspense, watching Zack's coworker with less than a bug's eye view and suddenly, a flash of light towards the substrate -- the laser! - and an exclamation, "Okay, who messed with these?"
Zack giggles. Becky, looming over you, scans her lab notebook, confirming that her data taken doesn't make sense. Suddenly, her face expresses, clarity.
"Zack, you shrunk yourself again, didn't you?" she says aloud, "No point in answering, can't hear you but...I'll reverse the machine..."
She fiddles with the mysterious machine on the bench and suddenly...[[Whoa!->END GAME Rescue]]
<audio src="https://nanoadventure-beta.neocities.org/Sound%20Files/First%20Contact%20(online-audio-converter.com).mp3" autoplay loop>Luckily, the flashlight is already pointing to vials of carbon dots. Unluckily, the flashlight might as well be a giant cliff.
"How...on earth are we going to operate this? We can't push the buttons at all!"
"Oh, we go inside."
He gestures you into a gap where the flashlight is put together, explaining, "We're going to use ourselves to connect the circuit! I can't do it alone but if we both hold hands, we can turn it on and off and in a blinking pattern."
You're in the guts of a flashlight...but it might as well be the worlds longest train. Zack is able to identify the on/off circuit and the connection to the battery. He grabes the circuit and you grab the power source. You clasp hands and a buzz of electricity runs through you. Confirmation that this is working leaks in from the seams in the flashlight - the light is on! It is pointing towards the vials of carbon dots, ampifying the light.
You and Zack create a rhythmn -- tapping your hands together in a morse code pattern for "save our ship".
[[Tap "dot, dot, dot" ->CDR 1]]
<audio src="https://nanoadventure-beta.neocities.org/Sound%20Files/First%20Contact%20(online-audio-converter.com).mp3" autoplay loop>With each of you on one bacterial steed, you're able to to reach the pile of NMC. While cumbersome, you're able to lift the hexagonal sheets on to your bacteria with a little bit of cleverness. Zack fashions a nano-rope by very gently selecting some long chains of molecules from your bacteria. You tie this microbially sourced rope around a stack of NMC sheets while Zack, atop the bacteria, reels them up.
Finally, you set your stash of new battery cathode NMC sheets - stacked like plywood - on to the back of your bacteria. You go to dust off your hands, as you've done many times before after some hard work, and realize to your amusement that there is no dust to brush off -- at this size, you are even smaller than dust.
The NMC cargo piled on your bacteria seems to stress it a bit, but you and Zack take dozens of these sheets back to the Shrink Machine. While it seemed sealed tightly shut at your normal size, as a Nanoperson, you and Zack can fit through nearly any crack and seam. The nanoworld, while vast and dangerous, has had very few barriers. You guide your bacteria through the winding machinery into the battery cavity.
Working together, you pull out spent sheets from the battery cathode while Zack shoves in new ones.
"How do we push the buttons?"
Zack laughs!
"What?" you exclaim.
"Well," he smiles, "We obviously put in nano-people sized controls for this situation, we just didn't account for battery issues. He opens a panel, clearly built for a nanoperson.
"Do you want to do the honors?"
You push the button he gestures towards, the only thing in this landscape built to your size, and...
[[Whoa!->END GAME Rescue]]
<audio src="https://nanoadventure-beta.neocities.org/Sound%20Files/First%20Contact%20(online-audio-converter.com).mp3" autoplay loop>The light blinks, three short blinks lighting up your carbon dots.
[[Tap "dash, dash, dash" ->CDR2]]
<audio src="https://nanoadventure-beta.neocities.org/Sound%20Files/First%20Contact%20(online-audio-converter.com).mp3" autoplay loop>Save...our...just a bit more tapping to convey the rest.
[[Dot, dot, dot! ->CDR3]]
<audio src="https://nanoadventure-beta.neocities.org/Sound%20Files/First%20Contact%20(online-audio-converter.com).mp3" autoplay loop>Your first "S.O.S." message is complete, and you keep the rhythm up.
Zack interrupts, "As soon as we hear something, we should try to get out or else we'll smash this flashlight when we--"
He is cut off, a loud voice -- a full sized person! -- announces, "I see it Zack! I'm setting the shrink machine in reverse..."
And you disconnect your hands and scurry as fast as possible out the mechanical nest of the flashlight and...
[[Whoa!->END GAME Rescue]]
<audio src="https://nanoadventure-beta.neocities.org/Sound%20Files/First%20Contact%20(online-audio-converter.com).mp3" autoplay loop>Written By: Natalie V Hudson-Smith
Programmed By: Natalie V Hudson-Smith and Wilanyi Alvarez Reyes
Original Artwork by: Kyle Galbraith
Additional Artwork by: Natalie V. Hudson-Smith
Translations by: Wilanyi Alverez Reyes, Rebeca Rodriguez, Xiaoxiao Yao, and Jiayi He
Electron Microscopy From: Curtis Green, (will fill in, this is the longest credit list by far)
Additional Images From:
Music By:
Beta Tested By: Stephanie L. Mitchell, Paige Kinsley, Christy L. Haynes, Clark Burdick, Rebeca Rodriguez, Nikki Hoang, Beza Tuga (check full list)
Hand Model: Stephen Cameron ↶↷
It's a crisp Monday morning at the Institute for Wildly Fantastic Sciences and Technologies. You are following your teacher and an Institute employee. The Institute employee is leading a rather dull tour. You find yourself dully picking at your stick-on name tag, which reads '' in your hasty handwriting.
This is your class field trip...and it was supposed to be cool. You start to lag behind the tour, and they turn a corner without you. Before you can be afraid, you notice a door that reads AUTHORIZED ACCESS ONLY...you crack the door open and peek inside...