CRYSTALMATCH 2021: And the winner of the 1st ICMAB crystallization contest is…

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 1^st 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!