In preparation of the CERN Open Days 2013 Google has released the CERN Streetview images. You can have a look around the LHC and all large experiments.
I spend the whole day setting up the LEGO tent for the weekend. And it turned out to be really nice. Now we just have to cope with all the people I was promised / warned about ;)
A lot of LEGO related things happened within the past days/weeks :)
I just came back from my trip to Bergen/Norway, where – besides taking some holidays – I spent a couple of days building yet another ATLAS LEGO model.
Only this time, I was only observing a bunch of kids (up to ten at a time) doing the actual construction of both the large and the small model. The whole thing was organised as part of the biannual meeting of the Norwegian Physics Society, which also invited me to give a plenary talk about outreach with plastic bricks, and my new Build Your Own Particle Detector programme. It was great fun, everybody learned something and I’ll certainly do it again … Thanks to the Bergen people for inviting me :)
Yesterday, I found the new issue of PhysicsWorld at the institute, which features yet another nice little article about the models and their success in the LEGO Cuusoo programme.
Today, I could convince LEGO to support my Build Your Own Particle Detector programme with a few more kilos of LEGO bricks, which we will certainly need for the CERN Open Days in late September.
Speaking of those, I finally will get my own 54 square meters tent again. Which will be packed if the expected number of visitors is actually true :)
Last but not least, we’ll do the same thing for Kulturnatten in Copenhagen, 11 October 2013.
Build Your Own Particle Detector
During the preparation for the CERN Open Days, I came up with the new official logo!
As we will have some posters going along with the LEGO model and the construction competition, I though it would be a great idea to have one.
Let me know what you think of the design … I like it ;)
Thanks to the guy(s) from toddle.com for the SVG LEGO man template.
After only about 16 days and with the help of many people I managed to pass the threshold of the required 10,000 supporter yesterday. I tracked the number of supporters over time shown in the plot below and I have to say it’s quite an impressive curve :)
But it’s only the beginning, now starts the real interesting part, the LEGO review. Even though the idea made the first step, it’s not yet certain that the model will be available as a product in the end. So let’s cross fingers and see what LEGO has to say about it. In fact, LEGO just posted their first official comment on the project on the ATLAS mini model Cuusoo page.
At this point I also wanna thank a few supporters that spread word and helped in this success. Most importantly that is Elise from I fucking love science, but there were also Torben at Ingeniøren, the guys from symmetry magazine and University Post, and many many more.
I have finally decided to try to get the mini version of my ATLAS model out in the open as an official LEGO product.
To get to that point, I will need 10.000 people supporting my idea.
So please vote for the model at http://lego.cuusoo.com/ideas/view/21619
