Category Archives: Hobbies

Pushing the bricks to the limit

CERN, Geneva, LEGO, Outreach

2014-02-17 17-36-19 LEGO ChallengeBesides 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?!

2014-02-17 17-39-47 LEGO ChallengeIn 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*).

What a week(end)

Copenhagen, Fotohalbmarathon, Manchester, Niels Bohr Institue, Outreach, Physics, UK

Quite an interesting week(end) that just ended. Besides the follow-up work for the CERN Open Days (deciding in winners, cleaning up, preparing shipments, etc.), I was preparing the Kulturnatten (open days) event of the particle physics group at the Niels Bohr Institute. Unfortunately the central organisation did not spend as much time thinking about the event as we did. Anyways, I think we made the best out of it and it actually went quite well. We had one auditorium with usual stuff like posters, videos and the LEGO models, plus our new self-made cloud chamber, which worked like charm for several hours. I spent almost four hours straight giving talks about ATLAS and more. A fact my voice seems to thank me for now :(

That done, and after only three and a half hours of sleep, we had the 2013 Fotohalbmarathon coming up on Saturday. This year we ended up with in total twelve teams taking part in the end. Some entered late, some had to cancel on short notice. But it’s a nice number, and people seemed to have enjoyed it.

After that, I started preparing my trip to Manchester, which I am going to start in only a few hours. Once more, I had to disassemble and pack the original Copenhagen LEGO model and I will take it on the plane in a bit.

Together with some people from Manchester, I will rebuild it tomorrow and on Wednesday non other than Nobel Prize winner Peter Higgs is going to sign it :)
I am admittedly quite excited :)

Laurent @ Culture Box

Copenhagen, Music

It’s been several years after his last appearance at Culture Box in Copenhagen and it’s been several months since I managed to see Laurent last time. So about time for both of us ;)

And what should I say … it was great!
After three hours of warm-up by the residents, Laurent started at 2am and continued until 6am.

Certainly long enough to make my knees hurt for the rest of the weekend. The good kinda pain though ;)