New Elements Contest

The contest was to have students design an elemental tile for each of the four newly named elements, nihonium (Nh), moscovium (Mc), tennessine (Ts) and oganesson (Og).

Winners

The final winners have been announced. With 200 submissions and thousands of online votes, these are the tiles that will be added to the Periodic Table Project:

Winning Nihonium tile from Greater Latrobe Senior High School, Latrobe Pennsylvania. Elemental tile of nihonium drawing with a large red sunset and tissue-paper cherry blossoms.

Winning Moscovium tile from St. Edmund Campion Secondary School, Brampton, Ontario. Elemental tile for moscovium made by digitally highlighting the outline St. Basil's Cathedral in Moscow.

Winning Tennessine tile from Port Credit Secondary School, Mississuaga, Ontario. Elemental tile of tennessine created digitally showing cross-section of a reactor core with Tennessee flag symbol in middle.

Winning Oganesson tile from Kitchener Waterloo Collegiate Institute & VS, Kitchener, Ontario. Elemental tile of oganesson showing a Russian flag with Dr. Oganessian eyeglasses, hair and hand and radioactive symbol.

Final four decision

We asked our stakeholders to decide on the final four for each. We had over 20 judges from our original Periodic Table Project sponsors — 3M Canada, JWA Group, Chemical Institute of Canada, University of Waterloo Office of Research, University of Waterloo Department of Chemistry and our own Chem 13 News Editorial Board. Yuri Oganessian was also one of the judges — yes, that Yuri Oganessian!

Yuri Oganessian comments on student's design tiles:

It was very nice to get acquainted with the drawings of young people. It was interesting to see how they perceive new elements. It seemed to me that they should have an abstract perception. In fact, each of them puts their own specific vision.

Check out the top four of each elemental tile:

nihonium, moscovium, tennessine, and oganesson.

Top ten

After careful consideration, our University of Waterloo New Elements Team selected the top ten submissions for each element.

See Top ten for each: nihonium moscovium tennessine oganesson

Submissions

Thank you to everyone who participated in the New Elements Contest; we received over 200 submissions from over 40 schools. Chem 13 News Magazine has been posting many of the submissions to the contest on Twitter.

See a compilation of these posted submissions.

Contest process in a snapshot

a flow chart to show 200 blocks to 10 blocks to 4 blocks to the final winner

Free Periodic Table Project app (iOS and Android)

While you wait for the announcement, have students download the free app for Apple, Blackberry or Android devices! The app has artistic tiles for each element on the periodic table along with descriptions behind the design. It also has the basic atomic properties of each element for students to readily access.

Background of Periodic Table Project

In 2011, we invited Chem 13 News’ readers to have their students artistically express an element on a 6” x 6” tile for the Periodic Table Project to celebrate the International Year of Chemistry. In 2013 we had a design contest for flerovium (Fl) and livermorium (Lv). In 2016 there were four newly named elements.

Read more about the Periodic Table Project.

Periodic Table Project with new elements