Unsolved
How can the interest of a broad public in contemporary particle physics be raised?
Unsolved presents an innovative new approach to the education and communication of the hard sciences. In collaboration with the physicists of the UNSOLVeD project, the EPFL+ECAL Lab took up the challenge to turn elemental particles into a tangible and playful experience.
To outsiders, the world of fundamental particles is a boggling swamp of complex schemes and abstract figures. So what would it take to make quantum mechanics more accessible to those who aren’t physics boffins? Here the challenge was to take a single concept from particle physics and transform it into a tangible and interactive experience for high school students and non-experts alike.
The EPFL+ECAL Lab team developed a card game and interactive tool that enable high school students to get a better understanding of theoretical particle physics in a simple way.
Offering a new pedagogical support, the interactive tool developed by the Lab proposes an unprecedented approach to learn Feynman diagrams in a collaborative manner. Students play alternatively, share their learnings and develop their knowledge of physics.
Created for a wider audience, from 8 to 99 years old, the card game “Tutti Quantum” enables players to comprehend quantum mechanics and Einstein’s relativity in a playful way. They build extravagant Feynman diagrams to earn points and win. With each graph representing a real-world particle phenomenon, this tangible game highlights the interactions between elementary particles.
The card game Tutti Quantum, edited by Helvetiq, was released in Autumn 2022.
Direction
Project Management
Béatrice Durandard in cooperation with Delphine Ribes
Product Design
Béatrice Durandard in cooperation with Matthieu Girel
AI & Software Engineering
Delphine Ribes in cooperation with Yves Kalberer and Lazar Stojkovic
Visual Identity
Interaction Design
Lara Défayes in cooperation with Luca Sassoli de Bianchi
UNSOLVEd CONTENT AND CURATION
Francesco Riva, Alexander Monin
Photography Credits
© EPFL+ECAL Lab / Calypso Mahieu