A total of 34 teams from across Europe applied to the competition, and the 10 best teams advanced to the finals. Our university is represented by a team consisting of Łukasz Matusiak, Dominik Kurnicki, Jakub Grzęda, and Karolina Komar.

The students’ project is called SporeSense and involves creating a moisture sensor based on hygromorphic bacterial spores. “For our team, made up mostly of new members of the Biomaterials Student Research Club, it’s great fun, but also an opportunity to test our ideas and begin research projects under the guidance of experts. It’s also a good chance to combine individual ideas with working for the benefit of the whole group. For our club, it’s a step toward reaching a wider audience with the science we promote every day,” says Łukasz Matusiak.

The hackathon finals will take place on November 27, 2025, and will select three teams that will present their projects to venture capital investors and industry experts on January 20, 2026, during the SynBioReactor conference in Berlin.

Congratulations to the Biomaterials team, and we’re keeping our fingers crossed for their performance in the finals!