metauni

Metauni is a communitary of scholars in the Metaverse, based on a 3D virtual environment provided by Roblox, location-specific voice chat using Discord and tools such as whiteboards that we have scripted in Lua. Access is possible on PC, Mac, iOS and Android. It is free in the sense of freedom and freethought and aspires to be both beautiful and fun. Watch the video intro.

Quick start (Rising Sea node): install Roblox and Discord programs, join the Rising Sea Discord and Roblox world and in Discord send a message !register Wintermute in the #registration channel where Wintermute is your Roblox username. See the instructions for more details.

banner

Events

Upcoming events

22/7/2021: Introduction to matrix factorisations by Daniel Murfet, in locus LC001 11am-12pm Melbourne time.

Talk events consist of a talk followed by questions and challenges. Past events:

5/3/2021: Stories from Zhuangzi by Ziling Ye {#4A, #4B}. Challenge inspired by Leibniz’s observation about binary arithmetic and bagua.
26/2/2021: Community builder event {no challenge}. We visited Kuroyikijima and the M.U.M.S room and then metatute: Calculus wars where we discussed running tutorials in Roblox (video).
19/2/2021: Adam Dorr on “Rethinking Energy” {#3A, #3B} with a pre-event tutorial on the logistic equation (video). The main event was not recorded but you can read the report it was based on and watch the associated video. The post-event challenges and question time were recorded (video).
12/2/2021: Community builder event {no challenge}. This started with an introduction to Weiqi on the new Weiqi boards, followed by a livestream on how to add metauni objects (the Whiteboard, Viewer and Weiqi board) to your Roblox world. BP then explained how to use the new metauni admin features to kick/ban users and manage usage of the whiteboards (video).
5/2/2021: Lucas Cantor on music (video) and a pre-event tutorial on the Chinese Remainder Theorem and its connections to music by Will Troiani (video) {#2A, #2B}.
29/1/2021: Build Your Own Node event. We introduced the Roblox + Discord setup and walked people through these instructions (video). After that was a livestream introducing Roblox Studio (video) {no challenge}.
22/1/2021: Daniel Murfet on deep learning theory (video, lecture notes, slides) {#1A, #1B}.

There is a brief video guide to attending talks.

Node directory

The inner nodes (i.e. nodes where we take full responsibility for what happens):

The Rising Sea (Discord). A collaboration of Daniel Murfet, Lucas Cantor and Ziling Ye. You can read more about TRS. See also Spectrum Spat the first spin-off game from TRS.
Metauni hub (no Discord).

The outer nodes:

M.U.M.S (Discord). Melbourne Uni Maths and Stats Society (web).
Kuroyukijima (no Discord).

Outer nodes may use some of the tools we have provided, and we may link to them on the metauni hub, but we have no control over the content of the Roblox worlds or their Discord channels.

How do I host my own node?

Currently a metauni node consists of code inside a Roblox game talking to a Discord bot hosted on Repl.it. We have compiled detailed instructions for setting up your own node and run regular drop-in sessions where you can get help. Once you have your node up and running see this page for a list of metauni tools that you can install in your world.

History

Current contributors are Daniel Murfet starsonthars, Billy Price, James Clift and Lucas Cantor HeadOfMusic.

14/1/2021 - History start, got Discord integration working, intro video.
16/1/2021 - Update with clickable documents, audio plinths and working teleports, another video.
16/1/2021 - Quick video on understanding “Publish to Roblox”.
17/1/2021 - Rewrote Discord bot to use MongoDB, fixed some bugs, implemented slide presentations (video).
17/1/2021 - Implemented popover “fullscreen” GUI for looking at slides, synced to the presenter’s current slide. There is a video demoing this feature as well as recapping the other features.
18/1/2021 - How to attend an in-world talk (video)
18/1/2021 - Instructions for building your own node to be read in conjunction with this blog post for the database and this one for keep alive (now superceded by Billy’s excellent guide, see below).
20/1/2021 - Development update: implemented “gather all” for voice channels (video) and implemented the challenge system, with the first two challenges for the first event #1A, #1B see challenges.
20/1/2021 - BP has posted detailed instructions for setting up your own node.
26/1/2021 - Over the last week the Discord bot has been rewritten by BP to use HTTP POST rather than a webhook, and now uses the repl.it database rather than MongoDB, among other improvements. This drastically simplifies the setup process, the guide to which has also been rewritten. The Rising Sea node has two new areas “Solar Peak” and the “Well of Past Events”.
27/1/2021 - Social media accounts up and running (LC on Instagram, DM on Twitter).
31/1/2021 - Added new talk area for Ziling Ye’s event (The Island). This will be final new area construction for a while in TRS.
1/2/2021 - Working whiteboards (by JC) and a new talk area (the Music Tower) for Lucas’s event.
6/2/2021 - Persistent Weiqi board added (construction video).
10/2/2021 - metauni Weiqi board first release on the Roblox Toolbox.
11/2/2021 - metauni Whiteboard and Viewer first release on the Roblox Toolbox (created by JC).
17/2/2021 - Updated whiteboards, now drawing is visible to new players in a server, significant performance improvements (JC).
18/2/2021 - New administration features: kick, ban, control of whiteboard access (use /?admin to see instructions) (by BP).
19/2/2021 - Debut of new logo (by LC).
25/2/2021 - First public release of AdminCommands (by BP).
1/5/2021 - Updated whiteboards, new replay feature (by JC).
16/7/2021 - Public debut of the talking boards and the locus concept.
22/7/2021 - Debut of the personal boards and rewritten code for the replay boards (by BP).

Music in the Rising Sea node:

“Pop with Toys” by Lucas Cantor - in our event video and on the audio plinth near the knot.
“Forgotten Sacrifice” by Lucas Cantor - in the Cave of Forgotten Sacrifice
“The Deification Of Naram-Sin” by Lucas Cantor - at the Solar Peak.
“A Metric Based on Insects” by Will Troiani - in the Blind Cave.