Now open for missions at our new location!
LabEscape Quantum Salvation Mission Center, Rm 1262 Digital Computing Lab
1304 W. Springfield Ave., Urbana, IL
LabEscape Quantum Salvation Mission Center, Rm 1262 Digital Computing Lab
1304 W. Springfield Ave., Urbana, IL
The fate of the world is in your hands!
LabEscape now brings you the fourth chapter in the storyline of renowned quantum physicist Professor Schrödenberg. As always, this latest mission features a unique set of awesome puzzles and challenges, all designed to amaze, delight, and astound! As always, absolutely NO science background is necessary to succeed, only curiosity, good communication skills and a willingness to collaborate with your fellow agents. So sign up for YOUR adventure today!
LabEscape brings you the latest chapter in the saga of renowned quantum physicist Professor Schrödenberg. The Professor has contracted a new virus strain that causes near total memory loss, and is EXTREMELY contagious. The last hope is to use a quantum processor to find a cure. Too bad none exist that are up to the task.
Coming soon in Spring 2025!!
Ready to go? Plan your LabEscape now.
LabEscape is only $8 for students/$12 for nonstudents. A LabEscape mission is ideal for 4-7 Agents. Our Chief Science Officer recommends that only agents 12 years and older sign up for these particular missions; any 1-3 Agents under 14 should be accompanied by someone 18+. Total mission duration (including briefing and debriefing) will be ~90 minutes.
Check back soon for more availability!
Visit Booking Page
Please write to LabEscape@illinois.edu if you want to have LabEscape setup for your event.
At the LabEscape project we are committed to creating an innovative escape game unlike any other.
First and foremost, we want to provide you a rewarding and thrilling experience that will leave you fondly reminiscing long after you’ve left. We also want to show you that science can be amazing, useful, beautiful, and yes, even fun!
We've created a series of jaw-dropping puzzles based on various science phenomena. You will literally see an object disappear before your eyes—no CGI tricks here! We’ll also provide simple explanations for these amazing science phenomena, with examples of how they already play a huge role "behind the scenes" in your daily life.
Puzzle Development Team
Previous LabEscape Agents
Volunteers
Escape rooms are a recreational activity that started about a decade ago in Asia, spread through Europe, and have become increasingly popular in the US last few years. Typically you work with a small group to solve a series of puzzles in order to complete your mission, which typically involves escaping from the space.
Absolutely! In some ways it's like being in an adventure movie where you’re writing the script as you go.
While some escape rooms can have horror themes, LabEscape rooms are not scary in the least, although certainly the mood can be pretty intense if the countdown timer is ticking away its last 30 seconds as you are trying to complete the final puzzle.
We recommend groups of 4 to 7 as optimal for our space. Although many escape rooms run larger groups, our experience is that in that case most people don't see most of the puzzles, and our puzzles are all pretty awesome, so we want as many people to experience that as possible.
Yes, we can accommodate up to 8. Beyond that the space becomes too crowded, and everyone has a worse experience. If you have 9-16 people, you should book two mission slots.
Our Standard mode is for agents without much or any previous escape room experience—as people who have done escape rooms know, there is a bit of a learning curve, just like there is for doing crossword puzzles; it's also fun for seasoned problem solvers. The Challenge mode, which is more for physicists, grad students, escape room experts, involves a couple extra puzzles (and an extra 5 minutes to complete the mission). Just let your Agent on duty know, and they can switch it up.
Yes! Depending on the schedule of our workers, we can often accommodate other times, e.g., morning, lunch, mid-afternoon. Just email us and we'll work to find a common solution.
As stated on our sign-up page, we recommend groups of 4 – 7 agents as optimal, but the space can accommodate up to 8. What we can do is run groups in somewhat rapid succession, e.g. one group that 5 p.m. and another at 6:30 p.m. This has worked reasonably well in the past for other groups. For even larger groups we also sometimes coordinate with CU Adventures in Time and Space, the other Urbana escape room. If you're booking several non-student runs with us, we may be able to offer you a slight discount; however, please understand that we're already both non-profit and non-profitable.
While we certainly have had agents as young as 10 go through with their families, the nature of LabEscape lends itself better to somewhat older agents. Our experience is that younger agents tend to get bored rather easily—and when they get bored they sometimes can unintentionally become rather entropy–producing, resulting in damage to our somewhat sensitive scientific equipment. If you have younger children, we recommend you check out CU Adventures in Time and Space (Urbana), or Brainstorm Escapes (Champaign), which have rooms suitable for a younger audience.
This depends somewhat on how early you let us know. If you simply don't show up to your reserved slot, we can't offer a refund, because we've already had to have the workers change their schedules in order to be at the room during that time. If you can give us a few days’ notice, then usually we can make other arrangements, or reschedule. Note: if you are part of a larger group, e.g., you signed up for four slots and then two other people signed up to complete the roster, your not showing up will essentially make it impossible for them to do the room, so if it all possible we STRONGLY encourage you to stick with your original reservation.
Probably, but not necessarily. As long as there are fewer than eight slots booked, someone else could book those empty slots, right up until the time the run starts (15 minutes before the listed time). That means three things:
Good question! The current Quantum Salvation mission is the 4th in the storyline. We are now working on the fabulous 5th chapter ("Dark matter catastrophe") that we hope to release by the end of 2024. If you're interested in being one of the first to test it, please email kwiat@illinois.edu.
Good question! As a non-profit enterprise, it's not our goal to make money through the LabEscape project. However, we do have costs (supplies, employees, etc.) that have to be covered. In fact, it's often the case that our income doesn't cover expenditures in a given month, which means we're quite often operating in the red. If you want help with this, please consider making a donation to the LabEscape project, which will help us continue to bring this unique entertaining and educational outreach activity to the community: https://LabEscape.org/#donate.
All of our workers completed at least several physics courses, so if that's you—fabulous. If not, we are always still on the lookout for those people with skillz to help build new puzzles. Send an email to kwiat@illinois.edu if you are interested in helping.