“I wanted to be sure to point out that you have in your Convocation tradition bags a collection of Periodic Table scavenger-hunt cards provided by the College of Sciences to help you get out and explore the campus and meet new people this week. As you’ll learn, this is a very ‘Georgia Tech’ kind of game!”

With those words of President G.P. “Bud” Peterson, addressed to the 3,100 new students at the Convocation on Aug. 18, 2019, the Georgia Tech Scavenger Hunt for the Chemical Elements commenced. By 9:30 AM on Aug, 19, Raj Srivastava submitted the first completed playing card, which won him a four-cup, periodic table beaker mug. Srivastava hails from Johns Creek, Georgia, and is a first-year computer science major.  

The scavenger hunt is part of Georgia Tech’s celebration of the International Year of the Periodic Table of Chemical Elements. Through various events and activities in 2019, the Georgia Tech community has been reacquainting itself with the iconic scientific tool from diverse perspectives.

Public lectures have been expounding on little-known facts about chemical elements and the periodic table. A periodic table section of the 2019 Art Crawl invited artists to find inspiration in the periodic table. A chemical element costume party last June offered humor and periodic table parlor games. Courses in music technology, industrial design, and writing and composition last spring and summer reintroduced the periodic table to students who might never have thought about it since high school.

The scavenger hunt, which runs on Aug. 19-23, takes participants to five buildings on campus. Each building has a partner – the element whose atomic number corresponds to the building’s location number on the campus map. Participants must fill the items in the playing card to claim a prize.

The game encourages participants to learn a few historical facts about some of the most iconic buildings on campus. Participants also discover fun facts about the element associated with each building.

To join the hunt, simply fill a playing card, which can be downloaded from here.

Playing cards are also available in each of the five participating buildings:

• Brittain Dining Hall, 12 – Magnesium
• Tech Tower, 35 – Bromine
• Carnegie Building, 36 – Krypton
• Coon Building, 45 – Rhodium
• Wardlaw Center, 47 – Silver

 Participants with completed cards should go to the School of Chemistry and Biochemistry, Room 2100Q of the MoSE Building, to claim a prize.