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19 games
Polymer adventure: a path of 10 POLYMAT games. Each card takes you to its mission. See the path
Party gamesDuration: 10 minCards
31 cards, six symbols each: any two cards share exactly one symbol. Find it, tap it and learn which polymer is behind it. 1 to 4 players on the same screen; relaxed mode too.
Organisations: POLYMAT
Mission 1 of 10 of the Polymer adventure.
Serious gamesDuration: 15 minCards
Nine instruments and six questions: with a dichotomous key - YES or NO, one path at each question - every instrument reaches its exit. Then, with the blank key cards, the group builds its own key.
Organisations: POLYMAT
Mission 2 of 10 of the Polymer adventure.
Party gamesDuration: 15 minCards
There are six instruments, and each forms a family of four cards: instrument, safety, polymer and unit. At the table and on screen, the same rules: four cards in hand and, on every turn, take one and leave another until you complete a family (on screen, 2 to 4 people on the same device or solo against the machine). Once the family is complete, the final test: guess the instrument's delivery note.
Organisations: POLYMAT
Mission 3 of 10 of the Polymer adventure.
Serious gamesDuration: 20 minCards
Six raw materials, six molecules and four orders. First, what comes out of each one; then whether those molecules are gas, liquid or solid and what density they have; and finally, choosing the raw material for each order with price, emissions and renewability on the table.
Organisations: POLYMAT
Mission 4 of 10 of the Polymer adventure.
Serious gamesDuration: 10 minCards
Five polymerisation reactions on the board, and two do not work: either the atom count fails or the monomer has no way to chain up. One reaction at a time: whoever first says where the mistake is - or that there is none - takes the polymer card.
Organisations: POLYMAT
Mission 5 of 10 of the Polymer adventure.
Party gamesDuration: 25 minBoard game
Ordinary draughts on an 8 × 8 board with one difference: every piece carries a number underneath, face down. Each player makes a polymer - PE or PLA - and has a length window: capture, add up and land inside it. Go past the maximum and you lose on the spot.
Organisations: POLYMAT
Mission 6 of 10 of the Polymer adventure.
Serious gamesDuration: 20 minCards
A box with no labels: nine objects, three polymers (PP, PLA, PA6, with their recycling code), four processing techniques and four bins. Each object goes into two zones: how it was made and where it goes. Then the field sheet with three objects from home.
Organisations: POLYMAT
Mission 7 of 10 of the Polymer adventure.
Serious gamesDuration: 20 minCards
POL has started working in the lab and the safety officer has written eleven risks on the file: heat, impacts, solvents, water. With each risk, three steps: which test decides it, what the figure says and what the verdict is: safe, caution or danger. Six tests, eight result cards and eleven decisions.
Organisations: POLYMAT
Mission 8 of 10 of the Polymer adventure.
Serious gamesDuration: 15 minCards
POL's battery must be charged. First, prioritise the energy source: turn six criteria over one by one and discard the sources that fail them; the code of the only one left opens the padlock. Then match the five steps of the energy's path with their property (transfer, transformation, transport, degradation, storage).
Organisations: POLYMAT
Mission 9 of 10 of the Polymer adventure.
Serious gamesDuration: 20 minCards
Nine messages about sodium batteries (video, paper, WhatsApp, company…). Rank each source in reliability tiers (S·A·B·C) using six criteria, pick the three strongest and say how to improve them.
Organisations: POLYMAT
Mission 10 of 10 of the Polymer adventure.
Party gamesDuration: 15-25 minCards
25 artistic covers and 27 article titles (two decoys). Read the titles and find each cover's pair. Digital version: 12 pairs per game, in as few attempts as possible.
Organisations: Ikerbasque
Party gamesDuration: 10-20 minCards
Everyone knows the secret word… except the impostor. One word each, discussion and vote. 40 words: light, batteries, hydrogen and polymers. One device (3-12 players) or cards at the table.
Organisations: Ikerbasque, POLYMAT
Party gamesDuration: 10 minCards
The Passion for Knowledge 2026 cards: any two cards share exactly one symbol; find it before anyone else. Each symbol is the research topic of a guest of the festival: meet 18 people from science. 1-4 players on the same screen; four modes with the printed cards.
Organisations: DIPC
Party games2-5 playersComing soonMaze
CIC nanoGUNE has developed a fast way to make magnetic microcatheters and microrobots. Steered by magnets, they travel through very narrow channels and could deliver cells or drugs exactly where needed.
Organisations: CIC nanoGUNE, Ikerbasque
«Rapid Fabrication of Self-Propelled and Steerable Magnetic Microcatheters for Precision Medicine». Advanced Materials 38 (2026). doi:10.1002/adma.202506591 (opens in a new window)
Party games2-4 playersComing soonMaze
With the University of Cambridge, POLYMAT has created fabrics with conducting-polymer electrodes that pick up brain and muscle signals at once, from the skin. They could help in rehabilitation and prosthetics.
Organisations: POLYMAT, Ikerbasque
«Body surface potential mapping of the cortico-muscular axis using smart textile electrode arrays». Nature Communications 17 (2026). doi:10.1038/s41467-026-75134-1 (opens in a new window)
Party games2-5 playersComing soonCards
In hot climates, geothermal heat pumps can warm up the ground. CFM has simulated a low-cost concrete that, from the rooftop, radiates surplus heat to the sky and reduces the drilling needed.
Organisations: CFM, DIPC
«Radiative-cooling concrete as a low-cost heat-rejection solution for Geo-thermal energy storage in hybrid ground-coupled heat pumps». Journal of Energy Storage 178 (2026). doi:10.1016/j.est.2026.123543 (opens in a new window)
Serious games2-5 playersComing soonCards
Polyester in clothing, blended with other fibers, is hard to recycle. POLYMAT, the Faculty of Chemistry and Ghent University break it down at just 65 °C and recover its monomer almost pure.
Organisations: POLYMAT, Faculty of Chemistry (EHU), DIPC
«Solvent switch strategy to facilitate the downstream process of chemical recycling of plastics». Resources, Conservation and Recycling 226 (2026). doi:10.1016/j.resconrec.2025.108686 (opens in a new window)
Party games2-5 playersComing soonCards
In every cell, some genes regulate others. At Tecnun, researchers used tensor networks, a quantum-inspired technique that runs on conventional computers, to infer these relationships from individual cells.
Organisations: Tecnun (University of Navarra), Multiverse Computing
«Tensor network-based gene regulatory network inference for single-cell transcriptomic data». iScience 29 (2026). doi:10.1016/j.isci.2026.116619 (opens in a new window)
Party games2-5 playersComing soonCards
DIPC and CFM researchers studied time crystals: quantum systems that retain a two-pulse rhythm under imperfect periodic driving. They combined an IBM quantum processor and classical simulations to study this behaviour in two dimensions.
Organisations: DIPC
«Realization of two-dimensional discrete time crystals with anisotropic Heisenberg coupling». Nature Communications 17 (2026). doi:10.1038/s41467-025-67787-1 (opens in a new window)
The card images are real cards from each game; the ZISOJO games' illustrations were made with artificial intelligence (Gemini).
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