Summer Workshop 2007
June 25, 2007 - June 29, 2007
This year, we focussed on high school students. Students assembled detectors and performed four experiments using cosmic ray counters: muon lifetime, scaling, muon speed and cosmic rate rates versus shielding. Eleven students participated, and all presented their results in talks to the whole group. Five teachers served as mentors, but they worked on separate activities and let students develop labs, mostly on their own.
Moon Shadow
To test whether we could detect enough muons to observe the shadow due to the Sun or Moon, we assembled a computer-controlled tracking telescope containing four small scintillators. We measured the muon rate in a 3 degree solid angular acceptance. There was a big difference between the rates inside and outside of our building, leading us to conclude that our trigger rate inside the building was dominated by interactions in material above us, fooling the narrow single muon acceptance with multiple muons.
Mini-Workshop
In addition 25 students and 7 teachers gathered for a 1-day saturday workshop in the Fall to install two sets of detectors at the Proviso Math and Science Academy
