The Würzburg-Dresden Cluster of Excellence "ct.qmat - Complexity and Topology in Quantum Materials" is entering into a media partnership with Dresden University School for the game app "Cat Q - a Quantum Adventure". The non-commercial app was developed on behalf of the Cluster of Excellence together with the well-known game designer Philipp Stollenmayer to make quantum physics fun for children and young people. "Katze Q", which has already won several game awards and has over 100,000 downloads worldwide in the app stores, has now been nominated for the "Goldener Spatz Wettbewerb DIGITAL" (Children's Media Festival).

Test, evaluation and video messages for the website

School classes test the nominated offers in advance. A group of around 20 pupils from the Dresden University School played through the app and, under the guidance of a "Goldener Spatz" media educators, gave detailed evaluations in a discussion and by means of questionnaires. The students then had the creative task of suggesting their own game ideas or asking questions to the developer in video messages they made themselves. The videos of the Dresden University School students will soon be published on the website of the "Goldener Spatz" media prize.

Schrödinger's cat

The model for the cat Q is a popular thought experiment in quantum mechanics by Nobel Prize winner Erwin Schrödinger (1887-1961), which became known as "Schrödinger's cat" . With the animal in the box, which is alive and dead at the same time, he created a vivid example of a principle of quantum mechanics in 1935: Objects can be in different states at the same time, which are actually mutually exclusive - called "superposition". In the game, Anna, the great-granddaughter of the world-famous physicist, helps the young players to free Cat Q from the crazy quantum world.

Information on the Goldener Spatz DIGITAL competition: https://goldenerspatz.de/festival/wettbewerb-digital

Information on the Cluster of Excellence "ct.qmat - Complexity and Topology in Quantum Materials ": https://www.ctqmat.de

Information on the "Cat Q" app: https://www.katzeq.app

About the University School Dresden

Dresden University School is a joint project of the state capital Dresden and the TUD Dresden University of Technology. It is a public and free community school run by the city, where innovative forms of teaching and learning are tested under academic supervision. In addition, it is a training school for future teachers and, in the future, a further education school for teachers. The University School Dresden Pilot Project Research Unit ForUS at TU Dresden is providing scientific support for the school trial.

Read more about TU Dresden’s research project: https://tu-dresden.de/gsw/unischule
Read more about the University School Dresden: http://universitaetsschule.org

You can gain a glimpse into daily school life and the research project on social media at @unischuleTUD. Follow the links to see the University School Dresden on Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, YouTube and LinkedIn.