Activity workspace guide
Sinq.Studio activities are guided science workspaces. In most classes, your teacher creates or assigns an activity, then you work through it step by step with help from the AI assistants chosen for that activity.
An activity keeps the question, directions, step goals, AI assistants, chat history, files, and artifacts in one place.
1. Getting started
The first time you open your dashboard, a short welcome card walks you through three things:
- Open an activity.
- Chat with your AI helpers.
- Finish each step to earn points and badges.
You can dismiss the welcome card once you know your way around.
To begin, open the activity your teacher assigned or gave you, read the goal, and look at the Step N of M banner at the top of the chat.
2. Steps and the "Step N of M" banner
Every activity is built from a sequence of steps. (Internally these are called "checkpoints", but you will mostly just see them as steps.) Each step is one important part of the investigation.
At the top of the chat, the Step N of M banner always shows the current step's goal in plain language, so you always know what to do next. For example:
Step 2 of 4 — Collect evidence: Record at least three careful observations of the Moon's shape over several nights.
A typical sequence of steps looks like:
| Step | What you do |
|---|---|
| Discuss the phenomenon | Choose or explain the pattern/problem you are studying |
| Collect or organize evidence | Put observations, measurements, or notes into a useful form |
| Analyze evidence | Look for patterns, compare groups, or make a chart |
| Explain your final reasoning | Use the artifacts you built (a presentation, diagram, 2D model, or 3D model) as evidence and explain what they show |
A step is completed when the AI reviews your chat explanation for that step and decides it has met the step's goal — not by producing an artifact. Charts, 2D/3D labs, and presentations are evidence you create and refer to in the chat to support a step; they are input toward the step, not the finish line.
A step gets marked complete in one of three ways:
- The AI marks it complete when your chat explanation meets the step's goal.
- You mark it complete yourself.
- Your teacher marks it complete for you.
You finish an activity when all of its required steps are complete. Finishing awards points (10 Ă— the difficulty level) and badges, once per activity.
3. Difficulty level and what it means for you
Every activity has a difficulty level from 1 to 5, shown as "Level: N" on the activity card and on the activity detail.
The level changes two things:
- How the activity is built. Higher levels are more complex and ask more of you.
- How the AI assistants help you. At Level 1, the assistants give lots of hints, break work into small steps, and are very supportive. At Level 5, they act like a demanding mentor: few hints, rigorous questions, and they expect you to reason for yourself.
If an activity feels very supportive or very demanding, the difficulty level is usually why. The same topic can appear at an easier or harder level.
4. Points, badges, and your Profile
Finishing an activity awards points. You earn 10 points for each difficulty level, so:
| Difficulty | Points for finishing |
|---|---|
| Level 1 | 10 |
| Level 2 | 20 |
| Level 3 | 30 |
| Level 4 | 40 |
| Level 5 | 50 |
Points are awarded once per activity — you cannot earn them twice for the same activity.
You also earn badges as you go. There are about fourteen of them, including:
- First Finish — finish your first activity.
- Milestones for finishing 5, 10, and 25 activities.
- Challenge Seeker — finish a Level 4 activity.
- Master — finish a Level 5 activity.
- Well Rounded — finish a variety of activities.
- Point tiers at 100, 500, and 1000 points.
- Day streaks of 3, 7, and 30 days.
- Finishing 3 activities in one day.
Open your Profile to see the Achievements panel. It shows your total points, your day streak, the number of activities you have finished, and a badge grid with a short "how to earn points" line. Badges you have earned show in color; locked badges are grayed out and tell you exactly what to do to earn them. Your teacher can see your points and badges too.
5. Work with the right AI assistant for each step
An AI assistant is a customized chatbot for one part of the activity. Your teacher may create different assistants for different steps so each one stays focused.
Examples:
| Step | Example AI assistant | Good use |
|---|---|---|
| Discuss the phenomenon | Pattern Explorer | Helps you choose a sky pattern and understand what causes it |
| Plan an investigation | Experiment Planner | Helps you plan variables, materials, trials, and fair tests |
| Organize evidence | Evidence Assistant | Helps turn observations and notes into usable evidence |
| Analyze evidence | Data Analyst | Helps make charts, summarize data, and fit models |
| Build a final artifact | Presentation / 2D / 3D Builder | Helps create the visual product your step asks for |
When you chat, be specific about the current step:
I chose Moon phases. Explain why the Moon appears to change shape, then ask me two questions before we decide what illustration to build.
If an activity has multiple assistants, pick the one listed for the step you are working on. In a team chat, you can also mention an assistant with @Assistant Name.
Locked assistants
An assistant tied to a later step can be locked until you finish the step before it. A locked assistant shows:
Unlocks when you finish the step before this.
This keeps you working in order: finish the earlier step, and the next assistant unlocks automatically.
6. Ask for one milestone at a time
For big work, ask for a small reviewable milestone instead of everything at once.
Strong milestone prompt:
Build the first version of a 2D Moon phase illustration. Show Earth, Moon, Sun direction, and a slider for Moon position. Stop after the first working version.
Then review what you see:
Keep the same illustration. The labels are hard to read, and I need the Earth-view Moon shape shown in a corner. Add those only.
This works better because the assistant can improve the existing artifact instead of restarting from scratch.
7. Use tools through the assistant
You do not click a separate tool button during chat. The activity creator chooses which tools each assistant may use. Then the assistant decides when a tool is useful.
Common tools:
| Tool | What the assistant can create |
|---|---|
| Charts | Line, bar, pie, and scatter charts |
| Calculator | Exact calculations with formulas and units |
| Web search | Reliable background sources |
| Describe data | Mean, median, range, spread, and outliers |
| Hypothesis test | Compare two groups carefully |
| Fit regression | Fit a line or curve model |
| Fit distribution | Check data shape or randomness |
| Visual presentation | A short slide deck |
| Interactive 2D lab | A Phaser simulation, animation, or game-like lab |
| Interactive 3D scene | A rotatable Three.js model |
Tool-ready prompt:
Here are our measurements with units. Make a scatter plot, fit a line, explain what the slope means, and tell me one limitation.
8. Prompt Clinic
Prompt Clinic appears below your message. It does not grade whether your science idea is correct. It rates whether your message gives the assistant enough information to help well.
Weak:
Make it better.
Stronger:
Keep the same 2D circuit model. Move the switch into the wire gap, make the resistor brighter against the dark background, and add a short explanation of why current changes when resistance changes.
Useful prompt habits:
- Include data and units.
- Say the output you want: table, graph, plan, slide, 2D lab, or 3D model.
- Say what should stay the same.
- Use expected vs. actual: “I expected __, but I see __.”
- Ask the assistant to ask questions first when you are unsure.
9. Artifacts
Artifacts are the things you build inside an activity: charts, tables, diagrams, presentations, interactive 2D labs, and 3D scenes. The assistant creates them for you, and you can keep improving them by asking for one change at a time (see milestones above). Artifacts are evidence: you reference them in the chat and explain what they show. A step is completed when the AI reviews that explanation — building an artifact alone does not complete a step.
10. Share, join, and clone activities
Use Share activity when another user should use your activity.
| Share mode | What happens |
|---|---|
| Join | The other user enters the same live activity. They can collaborate in the shared chat and activity space. |
| Clone | The other user gets a separate copy of the activity description and AI assistants. Chat history is not copied. |
Use Join for real group work. Use Clone when several students or groups should start from the same setup but do their own work separately.
11. If your teacher assigned the activity
Assigned activities may have teacher settings. Your teacher may allow or block:
- Changing AI assistant settings.
- Adding new AI assistants.
- Sharing for others to join.
- Sharing for others to clone.
If the activity is stopped by the teacher, you can still view the work, but you cannot keep changing it.
On your activity dashboard, class-assigned activities are grouped by class. You can withdraw from a class there after confirming. Your activity copies stay in your own activities.