Board games to learn complex scientific concepts and the "Photonics Games" competition

Board games can be useful supports for the exposition and explanation of complex scientific concepts. In the past years we realized and tested three different board games of this kind, presented on the occasion of three different editions of the "Festival della Scienza di Genova" (and of other minor events) in the form of giant live-version board games: "Quantum Race", for the introduction of Quantum Mechanical principles such as wave functions, delocalization, collapse and tunnel effect (2011), "Lab on a chip", for an introduction to the immune system and to Nan biotechnologies (2012), "Time Race", for the introduction to Special Relativity and to the concept of time dilation (2014). Each game has been played by about 1000 participants, mainly students, with excellent results concerning growth of interest and comprehension on the themes. In the ambit of the European Project Photonics4All and of the UNESCO International Year of Light 2015 we are now trying a step forward with a competition for high school Italian students concerning the creation of didactic board games on the themes of light and photonics to be held in the 2015-2016 autumn-winter period. We present in detail these activities with obtained and expected results and issues.