Emmy Noether is a character in the game Adventures with Emmy, a STEM-related game under development at the University of North Florida. | Art by Vic Sullivan.
Published on December 3, 2025 at 4:09 pm
Free local news and info, in your inbox at 6 a.m. M-F. Sign up for the Jacksonville Today newsletter.
The University of North Florida has received a large grant to support the development of a tabletop role-playing STEM game, related to science, technology, engineering and math.
The $1.3 million grant from the National Science Foundation will fund the research, development and testing of a game called Adventures with Emmy, or AwE.
Jacksonville Today thanks our sponsors. Become one.
The game’s name pays homage to German mathematician Emmy Noether, who in 1915 developed a theorem that’s been called a cornerstone of modern physics.
In the game, Emmy is the quest giver, the one who gives players their mission.
Brian Lane, assistant professor of physics and education and co-director of the Northeast Florida Center for STEM Education, says Adventures with Emmy is similar to the tabletop role-playing game Dungeons and Dragons, with a story-telling element.
Jacksonville Today thanks our sponsors. Become one.
The game can be played with dice, paper and pencils, and it includes content from biology, chemistry, engineering, math and physics.
“You’re rolling dice; you’re controlling a character; you’re encountering challenges, but at the end of the day, the thing you and your friends have done by the end of the session is told a really cool compelling story,” said Lane, who is considered a first-party author for the new game.
STEM expertise
Lane will draw on his expertise as a STEM education researcher and as a third-party author for the Pathfinder tabletop roleplaying game.
“We’ll be releasing it under what’s called the open RPG creative license,” he said. “It allows you, the publisher, to declare what elements of the game other people are allowed to remix and reuse and build on, and what you’re retaining as your intellectual properties.”
Other than Lane and UNF, principal Investigators for the National Science Foundation grant include Michael Bennett of the University of Colorado-Boulder, Chelsea Hendrus of The Ohio State University and Patrick Morgan of the University of Massachusetts-Amherst.
Lane said his writing team includes those with tabletop role-playing game authorship credit. Each has a different stem background.
“I’ve got a couple biologists, an engineer and a mathematician, and they’re each writing content specific to their background,” Lane said. “The team wants to give players a choice of what field of science or engineering their character is an expert in.
“So you’re playing a physicist or an astrophysicist or a mechanical engineer,or you’re playing an electrical engineer. It’s really cool because the people writing the game have those backgrounds. We’re trying to make it feel like you are engaging in those kinds of processes.”
They will research the game experiences for players 15 and older. Folks in Jacksonville can playtest the game at events starting next spring. The goal is to release the final product in time for Gen Con and the American Association of Physics Teachers summer conference, both in 2028.
“That’s the conference I go to, so I’ll be planning to offer a workshop there. But you do have the opportunity to play it before that, because over the next two years, we’re basically doing an extended public play test,” Lane said. “We write the core rules, with just enough guidance for a game master to run a few sessions.”
The group will follow up by collecting survey feedback.
They are also developing a virtual tabletop option for the game.
Editor’s note: Brian Lane is a member of the WJCT community advisory board.
