The 2021 ICMAB Party was an occasion for celebration, and we celebrated with many activities, both traditional and innovative. CRYSTALMATCH is an example of the latter, since 2021 is the first year ICMAB celebrates a crystal growing competition. In this contest conceived by ICMAB Researcher Nico Dix, participants received an ADP-KIT with all the necessary elements to grow a crystal at home. We even made a short tutorial on how to do it!
The judges deliberating on the CRYSTALMATCH winners (from left to right: Carles Miravitlles, Nico Dix, Anna Crespi, Jordi Rius)
The activity was planned so that ICMABers could participate with their families and friends, so that everyone could do some science in an easy way, and with astonishing results. A total of 13 teams presented their crystals, and the jury, formed by Teresa Calvet (UB), Jordi Rius (ICMAB), Anna Crespi (ICMAB), Nico Dix (ICMAB), and Carles Miravitlles (ICMAB), had the tough task to choose the winners for the different categories:
- Largest Crystal Award
- Most Beautiful Crystal
- Most Original Crystal
- Kids Award
- Open Category Award, for those grown with different compounds from the ADP-KIT
One last award was out of their hands: the Public Choice Award, which was voted by the attendees to the party!
Here are the participants and winners to the 1st Official ICMAB CRYSTALMATCH 2021:
Participants
Team Kepa
Márta Kubovics, Thomas Meslier, Marie Finas, Teresa Cardona, Albert Rosado, Wid mekseriwattana, Soledad Roig
NBAmaniacs
Mónica Benito, Eduard and Martí Gallardo Benito
Sandia Team
Saúl Estandía Rodríguez, Huan Tan, Xiao Long and Mengdi Qian
Campos Family
Francisco Javier Campos and Ainhoa Campos Marzo
Team 丰
Tingfeng Song and Yunwei Sheng
ADP-Kids
Anna Laromaine, Bernat Laromaine and family
Team IVAN
Ivan Álvarez Corzo and Laura Álvarez Corzo
And the Winners are…
Largest crystal award: Team Maite Escobar - Cristal de Noel
Most beautiful crystal award: Team Molecullias
Amanda Muñoz, Laura Rodríguez Cid, Daniel Riba Joseline, Valentina Iribarra Araya, Alejandro Borras, Raquel Gimeno, Nanthilde Malandain, Daniel Herrera
The jury had to make a tough decision with this one: "It was a tight decision between fine violet specimen (NBAmaniacs), a raw but intense curcuma crystal (Ivan Álvarez) and the finally chosen inset of Team Molecullias composition: a very homogeneous red crystal with beatiful corner facets."
Most original crystal award: Team ArtusCry
Inma Ratera, Magí Artús, Agnès Artús
The jury valued the "magnificent combination of differently formed crystal worlds, connected by crystallized strings forming the teams initials."
Kids crystal award: Team Els dofins científics
Mar Tristany, Nabil El Fakir Tristany, Samir El Fakir Tristany
The kids award was given "for their efforts to understand and capture the magic of crystallization in their magnificent poster."
Open category award: The Alkaline Terrans
Charlotte Bodin, Juan David Forero-Saboya
The jury valued especially the "beautiful pink cobalt doped dentrites, that were also growing in a garden full of varied size and shape ADP crystal fields."
And finally...
Public choice award: Team Cristallini
Roberta Ceravola and Olivia Conesa
This crystal was made with fluorescent dye: "Glow in the dark got the spark... A very bright fluorescent crystal!"
Congratulations to everyone who won, thank you for everyone that participated, and thank you to the organizers and jury for all the collaboration!