Laboratory tours, guided tours of the ELSA accelerator, live streams of the experiments at CERN (Geneva) and KEK (Japan), and an exhibition that explained step-by-step how a particle detector is built. There was also a varied supporting program of hands-on workshops, a rally, a bouncy castle and small experiments for children.
As so often, the little particle zoo buttons were a highlight at the Netzwerk Teilchenwelt stand. The “Find out which particle you are” quiz allowed visitors to find out which elementary particle best suits them and about particle physics activities for schools, young people and students. In addition, visitors could use the quark puzzle to understand what holds the world together at its core and play various board games to understand the basics of particle physics and machine learning. The Fellows from Bonn gave us great support in running the stand.
In workshops on building a cloud chamber led by Sebastian Laudage, interested people were able to experiment with the small cloud chamber sets from Netzwerk Teilchenwelt and observe particle tracks live in the deep laboratory. In this way, participants were able to expand their knowledge of cosmic rays and learn how to make the smallest particles invisible to our eyes.
All of this was just a small part of the varied program on particle and detector physics. Visitors were also able to take a look at the various laboratories in the Detector Physics Research and Technology Center, solder their own “light” detector (and take it home with them), discover various exhibits and try out small hands-on experiments on particle and detector physics.
