created by Katarina Anthony and Sascha Mehlhase

Particle Twister is a remake of the original Twister inspired by particle physics. The idea is to be able to play it a various levels of engagement, from simple rules like in the original game just replacing the simple colours with groups of particles, up to more involved and physics-related playing modes where participants can learn about interactions and how particle relate to each other.

The game consists of a playing board inspired by the Standard Model of particle physics as the basic ingredient of the game. In addition, just like in the original game, a spinner can be used to play the basic version of the game (similar to the original game). To allow for more flexibility and educative variations of the game, we have added 'Challenge Cards' in three different levels of difficulty that can replace the spinner.

Also check out the Progressive Web App (PWA) at particle-twister.mehlhase.info to give you the digital spinner and digital cards right on you phone/screen.

Download the material

The Board	The Spinner	The Cards
		coming soon – but now in the WebApp
Translations and special versions
German (Weltmaschine & Netzwerk Teilchenwelt) – board, wheel

Impressions

Manual

Basic setup

Put the mat on a flat surface, get your spinner (or game cards) out, take off your shoes and you are ready to play. The game can be played by two or three players and requires one additional person to be the referee, who might need some particle physics knowledge for the more advanced played modes.

How to play

Basic game

The referee spins the spinner and announces a body-part together with a colour (particle category) and all players have to place their body-part accordingly. If the called-out body part is already placed somewhere, the players must try to move their body-part to another particle of the same group (if possible). It is never allowed to have more than one (no matter which player) body-part on one given particle. If two or more players aim for the same particle, it is up to the referee to decide who got there first and the other players have to find an alternative particle of the same group. Players should never remove already placed body-parts from any of the particles unless directed by the referee or for a very short time and only if announced in advance to pass by another body-part. If all particles from a group are already covered, the referee must spin again until a possible task comes up. Any player who falls, or touches the mat with an elbow or knee, is immediately out of the game. The last player standing wins the match!

Advanced game

In the advanced mode, the spinner is replace by 'Challenge Cards' to call out the tasks for the players. These can now include more educative and challenging objectives, starting from tasks like 'Left hand on any strongly interacting particle' up to 'Left foot on a particle found in pions'. We plan to add more cards over time and also look forward to your ideas!

Alternative game modes

• In "Be a boson" the players are assigned a boson and the referee calls out reaction which the players have to form if it matches their identity (say the W boson in "beta decay"). Players win or lose points depending on whether they react correctly in time.
• "Which boson are you" is a (single-player) mode where the referee calls out initial and final states and the players have to create the process and state which boson they are and win or lose points depending on whether they managed or not (sometimes there might be only one solution).
• More will follow ...

Contact

If you have comment, questions, request, suggestions ... please send an email to particle-twister@cern.ch.