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- NewsEdSurge9 Jul 2026
I Built the Chemistry Platform I Needed in My Own Classroom
A high school student created Atomency, an interactive chemistry platform for building molecules and simulating reactions, aimed at making invisible chemical concepts tangible. The platform runs in a browser without requiring accounts or downloads.
Original abstract
<p>As a current high school student, the first thing I noticed about chemistry was that it was not only hard because of math or vocabulary. It was hard because so much of it was invisible.</p><p>In class, I could write a chemical formula. I could memorize that a molecule had a certain shape or that a reaction moved in a certain direction. But much of chemistry did not feel like something I could touch, move, test, or explore. The most important parts happened in a way I would never see.</p><h2>A Two-Dimensional Perspective</h2><p>Chemistry is a subject built on relationships. Atoms connect, electrons move, bonds form, molecules bend, acids and bases shift equilibrium, gases respond to pressure and temperature, and reactions balance because matter must be conserved. When those ideas stay flat on a page, students memorize answers without understanding the system behind them.</p><p>As a rising 12th-grade student at Suitland High School in Prince George’s County, Maryland, I set out to build a solution because I wanted a serious chemistry workspace students like me could use. I wanted something visual and interactive that could run on school devices without complicated setup — without the need for students to create accounts, download resources, or collect student data. I also wanted something that could open in a browser and allow students to begin learning right away.</p><p><a href="https://atomency.com/">Atomency</a> started from a simple question: What would chemistry look like if students could build, manipulate and test ideas instead of only reading about them?</p><p>I began by building a workspace where students could create molecules and see structure-based information. From there, I added VSEPR-style analysis so students could connect formulas to molecular geometry instead of treating shapes as something to memorize from a chart. Then I kept expanding it: I incorporated reaction simulations, nuclear decay tools, kinetics tool, acid–base and pH tools, gas-law mo