HydrogeLand

ColorMePhD is Excited to Bring You:

HydrogeLand: A Candy-Filled Hydrogel Adventure!

What is HydrogeLand?

HydrogeLand is an educational coloring page and board game designed to teach you about hydrogel research performed by chemical engineers Chelsea Edwards and Prof. Danielle Mai. As part of our ongoing series of coloring pages featuring women in science and engineering, this is the first coloring page that also doubles as a board game you can print and play at home! Travel with scientists Chelsea and Danielle through the world of HydrogeLand, where we use candy to teach you about hydrogels and how they behave on a molecular level!

In the links below you can download a free printable PDF which includes the coloring page and research description, instructions, gameboard, and cards. The gameboard comes in two versions: small (which requires taping together two 8.5 x 11 in pages) or large (which requires taping together four 8.5 x 11 in pages). The large version is recommended for easier coloring, and for playing the game at home. The small version is recommended for advanced and detailed coloring with fewer page breaks.

Click the links below for a printable PDF with everything you need to print to learn, color, and play the game!

Don’t need to print the whole thing? We’ve also got separate PDFs:

Description Only
Gameplay Instructions Only
Coloring Page / Gameboard Only (Small Version)
Coloring Page / Gameboard Only (Large Version)
Gameboard Full Image (If you have access to a printer that prints on 17 x 22 in paper or larger, or want to color digitally, download this image, which has no page breaks!)
Cards Only

TIP: When printing, under “page sizing & handling, select “fit” instead of “actual size” or reduce size to 96% to ensure the margins don’t get cut off.

Need some help getting started?

Here is a suggested coloring pattern for the gameboard:

Don’t have a printer?

Try playing with this digital gameboard on an iPad, Computer, or by projecting the game board onto the TV. Save a picture of this gameboard to photos, then using your favorite photo editor, create marks on the board to move the pawns. Or if you have PowerPoint on your computer, paste the gameboard onto a slide and use shapes in editor mode to move around as pawns (see steps below for details). This gameboard is also color-blind friendly.

Instead of printing our HydrogeLand cards, you can use a standard deck of playing cards and the following guide corresponding to the game board:

Queen of Spades: Brittle Bungalow
Queen of Hearts: Professor Lolly
Queen of Diamonds: Anisotropic Artic
Queen of Clubs: Taffy Tree
Jack of Spades: Jello Lagoon
Jack of Hearts: Coiled-Coil Caverns
Jack of Diamonds: Double Diamond
Jack of Clubs: Double Club
King of Spades: Double Spade
King of Hearts: Double Heart
King of Diamonds: Double Diamond
King of Clubs: Double Club
Ace,2,3,4,5,6,7,8,9,10 of Spades: Single Spade
Ace,2,3,4,5,6,7,8,9,10 of Hearts: Single Heart
Ace,2,3,4,5,6,7,8,9,10 of Diamonds: Single Diamond
Ace,2,3,4,5,6,7,8,9,10 of Clubs: Single Club

Here, the same rules as the print/ color version apply, except instead of advancing to the next color, advance to the next square that matches the suit on the card. If an Ace,2,3,4,5,6,7,8,9, or 10 is drawn, move the pawn to the next square with the matching suit. For face cards (Jacks, Queens, Kings) follow the guide above. Note that you should only land on the location squares if you draw a location card. For example, if you are at the end of the entanglement bridge and draw a 5 of diamonds, proceed to the next large diamond square, not the anisotropic artic square with an outline. If at the end of your turn, you land on a square with a white circle, you miss your text turn.

Don’t have a set of cards?

Use an online random card generator like one of these: https://www.random.org/playing-cards/ or http://random-cards.com/1-shuffled-deck/

PowerPoint instructions:

1. Save picture of gameboard (click here) to file location

2. Insert > picture > from file

3. Insert > shapes > choose shape > adjust size by dragging from corner

4. Click on shape > format > shape fill to change color

5. Drag shape to advance on gameboard

Created by: Chelsea Edwards, Danielle Mai, Ph.D, and Julie Rorrer, Ph.D.

Illustrated by: Julie Rorrer, Ph.D.