Competition: a beam line for schools

CERN is famous for the Large Hadron Collider, but there’s much more to the laboratory than that. A large part of CERN’s research and development is carried out using fixed-target beam lines, which are used for a variety of experiments that range from investigating the inner workings of protons to probing the mysteries of antimatter. In 2014, to coincide with its 60th anniversary, CERN will be making a fully equipped beam line available for a team of school students to run an experiment. Physicists, engineers and experts in data acquisition and analysis will offer students guidance. Beam time will be allocated by scientific competition, just as it is allocated for all CERN experiments.

The competition is open to teams of high-school students aged 16 and up. Teams can be composed of up to 30 students with at least one adult supervisor, or “coach”. Up to nine of the team members and two coaches would come to CERN to run the team’s experiments. Proposals will be pre-selected by a committee of CERN scientists, and the shortlist will be sent to the SPSC, the committee that validates all proposals for experiments at the laboratory’s SPS and PS accelerators.

To enter, student teams should carefully study the information about the beam line and experimental facilities (available for download below) and tell us why they think they should win the chance to carry out experiments at the world’s leading laboratory for particle physics.

Proposals will be evaluated according to the following criteria:

1. Motivation of the students
2. Creativity
3. Feasibility of the proposal
4. Demonstration of ability to follow the scientific method

How to take part

There is stiff competition for access to the laboratory’s unique facilities; all CERN experiments must be approved by a scientific committee. A successful application process by a collaboration wishing to run an experiment at CERN tends to follow this pattern:

1. The collaboration submits a letter of intent to the committee.
2. The committee invites the collaboration to submit a full proposal.
3. The collaboration submits a full proposal.
4. If the collaboration’s experiment is accepted, it is integrated to the laboratory’s research programme.

The beam line for schools will follow the same pattern:

1. Teams register (their expression of intent) – deadline: 31 January 2014
2. Teams submit a full proposal – deadline: 31 March 2014
3. All proposals are considered by a team of CERN scientists, and a shortlist prepared for the SPSC – key factors at this stage are motivation and creativity
4. The SPSC considers the shortlisted teams and selects one – May 2014
5. Nine members of the winning team, plus up to two adult coaches, come to CERN to carry out their experiment – between July and September 2014

Find out more

Interested? A series of Google hangouts will be arranged, giving you a chance to ask questions and talk online with scientists. Follow CERN on Twitter, Facebook or Google+to find out when the hangouts will be run and how to join them. These will be available in a number of languages. The provisional schedule for hangouts is:

• English: Tuesday 3 December 16.00 CET (Watch recording)
• French: Thursday 5 December 16.00 CET
• Italian: Tuesday 10 December 16.00 CET
• Spanish: Thursday 12 December 16.00 CET
• German: Tuesday 17 December 16.00 CET

You can find your nearest IPPOG member here who will do their best to respond to questions that you may have in your national language. Please note that submissions may be made in English or French, the official languages of CERN.

You are also welcome to contact us directly via beam-line-4-schools@cern.ch. Please note that there will be a lot of questions from all over the world and we recommend to get in touch with your local contact first. Regular updates about the competition will be availablehere.

Registration

Registration is via this form. We recommend that you first take part in one of the hangouts or watch a recording of one before you register. Registration notifies CERN of your intention to submit a proposal and qualifies you for future hangout sessions. Registrants will receive information by email on how to submit a full proposal. Registration will require:

1. Team name
2. Country/language preference
3. Name and email of adult coach
4. School(s) or organisation(s) represented.
5. A 140-character statement on why you should win this competition.

Registration will close at midnight CET on Tuesday 31 January 2014.

Please note that while up to 30 students may be on a team, only nine students (all at least 16 years old on the first day of their visit to CERN) will be able to come to CERN; other team members may participate remotely through data analysis and live streaming. Teams willnot be judged on their 140-character statement, but some statements may be featured by CERN in its own communications.

Proposal

Students must work together to create a proposal in two parts:

1. A written proposal of up to 1000 words that may be supported by diagrams or pictures. It explains
   • Why you want to come to CERN;
   • What you hope to take away from the experience;
   • Your initial thoughts on how you would like to use the particle beam line for your experiment.
2. A 1-minute video that summarizes your written proposal in a creative, entertaining way.

Note that the above points will be judged equally. We are not expecting a fully developed experimental proposal with a detailed setup and hypothesis. An idea on what you and your team want to find out or how you want to use the beam line communicated in a creative way is enough to take part. So don’t worry if the technical details of the beam line facilities (see download below) look a little daunting at first, we’ve also provided an example experiment and you can base your proposal on that if you wish.

Adults are encouraged to help students understand what the particle beam is capable of, but the students must create the proposal themselves. The winning team will have the opportunity to work with CERN scientists to refine their ideas before they come to CERN.

Proposals must be received by midnight CET on 31 March 2014. Winners will be notified in May 2014.

The prizes

The first prize is a trip to CERN to carry out experiments at CERN at a time to be agreed between CERN and the winning team in the period July to September 2014. The winning team or teams will be invited to CERN for a period of one week to carry out experiments on the beam line. Financial assistance will be provided to help cover their travel and accommodation expenses for the trip to CERN in Geneva.

The team will be divided into three groups that will rotate between three locations. Location one is the CERN Control Centre, from which all CERN’s accelerators are operated. There, students will work with the machine operators to deliver the beam to the East Hall experimental area where their beam line is situated. Location two is the East Hall control room, from which students will be able to fine-tune the beam being sent to their experiment. Location three is the control room for the experiment itself. Members of the team that do not come to CERN will still be able to take part in the data analysis and participate in the experiment via the exchange of web-based data.

All shortlisted projects will receive T-shirts for all team members and a surprise gift from the CERN shop.

All proposals that were complete and were submitted on time, or extracts from them, may be showcased on the CERN website after the competition closes, and CERN will issue certificates to the teams that submitted them. In addition, the groups will receive priority should they wish to organize a visit to CERN or take part in a particle physics masterclass, and their teachers will receive priority should they wish to apply for CERN’s high-school teacher programmes.

Terms and conditions

Thank you very much for your participation! Please note that by entering in the competition, you understand and agree to the following conditions:

1. Please note that CERN must have received your proposal by midnight CET on 31 March 2014. We regret that late or non-compliant submissions shall not be considered;
2. If you are under 18, you must provide a written consent by your parents or guardians for your participation in the competition;
3. Please do not include inappropriate, unlawful or offensive content in your proposal;
4. Make sure to keep a backup copy of your proposal;
5. Kindly note that others may develop and submit proposals that are similar or identical to yours, independently from your own proposal;
6. CERN reserves the right to select several proposals if they are similar or identical. In this case the winning teams shall work together and execute their proposals as a single experiment.
7. You have obtained all rights and permissions from any person who may have participated in, or contributed to the creation of your proposal; please respect copyright!
8. If your proposal wins the competition, you authorize CERN to publish it in its entirety in the context of the competition and use it for its education and outreach activities. All other proposals will be published in the context of the competition and used by CERN for its education and outreach activities by way of extracts.
9. We may request further information from you in the selection process, if this is helpful for the evaluation of your proposal;
10. CERN reserves the right to postpone, suspend or cancel the competition at any time in case of insufficient participation;
11. CERN will apply utmost care to the selection of the winning proposal(s). Unfortunately, we are not in a position to communicate the reasons for any non-selection. The selection decisions are not subject to claim or appeal.