The How to Build a Human Challenge
One Cell at a Time teamed up with Little Inventors to challenge school children (aged 11 – 14 years) from all over the UK to design a card game inspired by the Human Cell Atlas and their knowledge of human cells and tissues.
The national school’s challenge was designed to stretch students’ imagination and develop their creativity and problem solving skills, whilst introducing how science is applied in the real world through the cutting-edge nature of the HCA’s work. A team of three, Year 9 students from Kimbolton School in Cambridgeshire beat more than 100 submitted entries to win the challenge. Alistair Outram, Filip Pekala, and Tom Sumpton collaborated with award-winning game designer Richard Heayes to turn their original card game concept, called AcCELLerate, into a real card game.
To see all entries and download the The How to build a Human: Design A Card Game teaching resources visit https://hca.littleinventors.org.
The Winning Game
AcCELLerate is a race against time to collect all the cells in the digestive, circulatory, nervous, respiratory systems and the skin, but avoid picking up any viruses! This is a quick-paced card game that is a race to build a human.
AcCELLerate Card Designs
Scientific illustrations created by Jana Eliasova
Meet the Winners
The winning game, AcCELLerate, was invented by: Alistair Outram, Filip Pekala and Tom Sumpton, Year 9 students from Kimbolton School, Cambridgeshire.
Image: Alistair Outram, Filip Pekala and Tom Sumpton, Year 9 students from Kimbolton School, Cambridgeshire sharing the news of their new game on BBC Look East.
The Selection Process
The judging panel included award winning game designer, Richard Heayes, Dominic Wilcox, founder of Little Inventors, Anna Wilbrey-Clark, a staff scientist at the Wellcome Sanger Institute who is working on the Human Cell Atlas and Suzy O’Hara, One Cell At A Time project curator.
“We were so impressed with the game designed by Alistair, Filip and Tom. They are a great team. The illustrations were hand-drawn and incredibly professional, and the whole game is really well thought through, from the wording in the instructions to the gaming rules and tactics.”
Dominic Wilcox, founder of Little Inventors
“The Human Cell Atlas is looking to identify cell types in the body. I really liked how the AcCELLerate team captured what the HCA is aiming to do, and incorporated that into their game, with a wide range of cell types and information about the cells. It’s a great game for people to play and learn about the science of the Human Cell Atlas.”
Dr Anna Wilbrey-Clark, Wellcome Sanger Institute
Bringing The Game To Life
Game designer Richard Heayes and Illustrator Jana Eliasova collaborated with Alistair, Filip and Tom through each stage of the game design and manufacturing process to turn their initial idea and drawings into a real card game. He then worked with his design team and the scientific illustrator for the Human Cell Atlas, Jana Eliasova, to design the actual cards themselves.
Read Richard’s Maker Blog.
Runner Up - Is Antibody There
Is Antibody There
Is Antibody There was submitted by Isabelle Seaton, age 12 from Portsmouth. This is a real-time cooperative card game based around the functions of cells in the human body. It is in a similar vein to that of the game Spaceteam, but is set apart by both theme and an accidental traitor element caused by a player revealing a virus card.
Over 100 game concepts and designs were submitted by schools across the UK and every school group that entered received an excellence award certificate.
To see all entries and download the The How to build a Human: Design A Card Game teaching resources visit https://hca.littleinventors.org.