Though I unfortunately missed today’s event leading to the left part of the image,
this now complete set makes me a very happy physicist :)
I might get some more pictures later, but this one itself is already quite nice.
Both pieces will end up in the nice new glass casing we got for the ATLAS LEGO model in the ATLAS Visitors Center at Point 1 at CERN.
Besides the usual overload on work during stays at CERN, this week was kinda special. It was about 250.000 pieces of LEGO more special than any other week before.
With the help of more than 20 volunteers (thanks a lot to everyone), I was counting, weighing, sorting and packing pieces in the mornings and late evenings. I guess I only had breakfast and dinner twice this week. Anyways, people are in fact still sorting while I am writing this piece at the Geneva airport.
It’s been quite fun, frustrating, enjoyable, social and many more things at the same time. Unfortunately LEGO decided to send the pieces, for the 23 models I ordered, with a safety margin added after multiplying instead of before. Hmm?!
In addition we also miss quite a few pieces, but these are all things to be sorted out next week. And even with the pieces missing for now, I guess we start making institutes happy by end of next week. Once done I will update the by now quite impressive ATLAS model statistics. There will be 59 models out in the open by then. *happy*
I will post a few pictures and prepare a time-lapse movie of the event during the coming days (which I guess will be busy as well *unhappy*).
… and it’s certainly not the very best timing, with all the planning we have to do these days, but I am on my way to CERN right now.
It’s going to be an interesting week full of work and Lego pieces. Dunno exactly how it’s going to work out, but I am certainly not going to get bored.
If you happen to be at CERN this week you’re welcome to join the Lego event … Well if you dare also the physics meetings ;)
What a weekend, what a weekend! I am dead, but it was great!
After driving the institute car from Copenhagen to Berlin (Monday), from Berlin to Frankfurt (Tuesday) and from Frankfurt to Geneva (Wednesday); I finally arrived at CERN on Wednesday afternoon last week. It took two and a half days, until Friday evening, to set up an amazing tent for the CERN Open Days 2013. On about 50 square meters I had three large tables covered by roughly 30 kilograms of random LEGO pieces, both ATLAS LEGO models on display, various posters about the models and physics on the walls and an amazing 2×2 46″ video wall showing the model-vs-detector-timelapse video and more.
Friday evening I took part in the Origins 2013 physics speed dating event. While all the people that had originally booked a date with me did not show up (the central organisation made it slightly difficult to find the right tent), I had some nice ad hoc speed dates with various people on all sorts of topics. I guess, the idea was quite nice, maybe the implementation was not entirely perfect. Maybe next time.
Finally on Saturday, after another night of only little sleep, the Open Days started. Apparently CERN had between 70,000 and 80,000 visitors with 20,000 people visiting the underground experiments (preliminary numbers), such as ATLAS or CMS. I had thousands of people passing through the tent and 300 participants for the Build Your Own Particle Detector competition. In between all the LEGO activities, I luckily also managed to give three tours to ATLAS, where on one of those I was wearing a helmet camera. So if all worked well, I might have a video of the tour soon.
After a long day, I spent the Sunday exploring various CERN sites together with my sister, Richard and Andrea (greetz). I had managed to book a tour for the ALICE experiment and in addition we got tickets for both ATLAS and LHCb as well. We probably could have managed to see CMS as well and repeat our 2008 Open Days trip, but we were simply too exhausted to continue.
Now I just want to sleep …
It took me some time, but finally I managed to write a few words about the fantastic event I took part last Sunday.
I was asked to run one of the stations during the inauguration event of the new Passeport Big Bang interactive circuit at CERN. The circuit is a permanent installation and collection of cycling tours to explore the LHC and the area its situated. During the inauguration event there were a variety of stations set up the inform, educate and entertain the public. One of the stations happened to be my idea of a “Build your own particle detector” competition.
Following the spirit of the ATLAS model I made back in 2011, the task was of course to build the model in LEGO. Putting together pieces bought by the high energy physics group at the Niels Bohr Institute, the CERN outreach group and myself, I managed to get about 15 kg of LEGO. Stuffed in my tracking backpack, I took them from Copenhagen to Geneva and back as my only travel luggage. CERN organised a nice and big tent with plenty of room for heaps of people and kilos of LEGO. With the help of the ATLAS event management team, I managed to fill up the tent with a few posters, my large ATLAS model and a nice big 42″ screen showing the model construction time-lapse movie.
Even though we were certainly lacking a few things in organisation and were certainly not enough people (thanks to my helper Natalie), the idea worked out extremely well.
We estimated the number of children passing through and playing with LEGO in the hundreds, with 81 models handed in for the competition. Again, thanks to the people setting up the ATLAS tent next to mine, I also had some giveaway for every contestant, to bridge the waiting time for a decision of the grand jury.
You can see some pictures of the event and all the models in the competition at http://passeport.mehlhase.info/.
As the event was quite a success, I’ll probably set up a similar event during the CERN Open Days on September 28th/29th and at Kulturnatten in Copenhagen on October 11th.
