QuarkQuest: the free particle-physics game about the Standard Model
QuarkQuest is a tour of the universe's smallest building blocks. Learners zoom from the atom down to quarks, build protons and neutrons, meet the leptons and force carriers, and explore antimatter, the four forces, and the Higgs. Aimed at middle and early high school, it's free, with no ads and no tracking of your kids.
What kids learn
- The building blocks of matter: six quarks and six leptons in three generations
- How quark charges add up to make protons and neutrons
- The four fundamental forces, their strengths, ranges, and carrier particles
- What antimatter is, and why particles and antiparticles annihilate
- How beta decay conserves charge and produces a neutrino
- The story of the early universe from the first second to the first stars
How it works
QuarkQuest is a step-by-step multiple-choice quiz with animated visuals. Each level pairs an instruction and tap-to-choose options with a stage that illustrates the idea — zooming through scales, assembling a nucleon, or ordering the epochs of the Big Bang. A teaching note follows each answer, and stars reflect accuracy.
A grown-up signs in once and adds a player for each kid, so QuarkQuest's stars and progress save to your account and follow you to any device.
Ready to play QuarkQuest?
It's free, with no ads and no tracking of your kids. Ages 12–16.