Category Archives: Outreach

Nuit de la science

CERN, Geneva, LEGO, Outreach, Switzerland

2016-07-09-17-23-37-NuitDeLaScience

Last weekend I had a quick trip to Geneva. Aside the usual meetings at Cern, I had the pleasure to host another BYOPD event. This time as part of the ‘Nuit de la science‘ at the ‘Musée d’histoire des sciences‘ on invitation of the Atlas group at the University of Geneva.

With in total 17 hours plus preparation and clean-up time, it was quite a bit of work, but it was certainly a lot of fun again. We had over 80 contestants, ranging age three to 74, entering the competition and quite a few more people just chatting with us about particle physics, Cern, Atlas and whatnot.

We also had cloud chamber as well as the ATLASrift as part of the particle physics contribution.

Building yet another one down under

Australia, CERN, Outreach, Physics, Sydney

BYOPD squareLooks like I’ll have the chance to build yet another Atlas Lego model in Australia this summer.

Thanks to COEPP and the Powerhouse Museum, I’ll be in Sydney in August to build an Atlas Lego model with students as part of the Sydney Science Festival (FB) / National Science Week in Australia.
During the two-day event we’ll also have public sessions for visitors to build Nathan’s LHC micro models and the finished large model will be part of the CERN Collider exhibition hosted in the same place from 6 August to 30 October 2016.

Follow the BYOPD web site / Facebook site for more updates on this topic …

Pancake throwing

Outreach, Physics

Ever thought about the physics of pancake throwing? No?!
Apparently some people did and came up with an ‘interesting’ formula.

Last week I was contacted by a TV production company that wanted to make short clip about some formula on pancake throwing they found on the net and needed some information / check on.
Dr. Mark J. Hadley of Warwick University has derived a simple equation, that might or might not be a reasonable approximation.
It lacks a few details, though some are discussed, and completely ignores the shape of the pan, but then again …

Unfortunately, I did not yet find out when and where the clip is to be shown on TV :(
Still, it was fun reading and physics :)

A book, two bottles of wine and my name on Amazon

Books, CERN, Deggendorf, Outreach, Physics

DFDDA

Today, I received this very nice box with two copies of the book “GoBD und Big Data: Neue Herausforderungen für die digitale Datenanalyse”, two bottles of wine and a kind letter from the Deggendorfer Forum zur digitalen Datenanalyse e.V., to celebrate the publication of the proceedings for the annual meeting I went to end of June.

It’s also a celebration of my first book as an author on Amazon :)

Thanks a lot to Prof. Georg Herde and the DFDDA e.V. for inviting me and of course for the gift box :)

It’s public …

LEGO, Outreach, Physics

… my first ever public note on outreach :)
“Building Blocks of the Universe – using stackable plastic bricks to impart knowledge in particle physics“

ATL-OREACH-PUB-2015-001Abstract: This article presents possibilities to impart knowledge of and enthusiasm for particle physics to essentially all non-expert target audiences by the use of LEGO bricks and models of particle physics experiments built from these. Methods of using LEGO models, both as a passive exhibit and as part of interactive outreach events, are presented, along with a historical review of the “Build Your Own Particle Detector” programme and the corresponding idea of hosting competitions in building detector models in LEGO pieces as a perfect setting to grasp people’s attention, get them involved and ultimately convey knowledge in particle physics to them.