CERN today announced the winners of its 2017 Beamline for Schools competition. “Charging Cavaliers” from Canada and “TCO-ASA” from Italy were selected from a total of 180 teams from 43 countries around the world.

Geneva, 13 June 2017. CERN1 today announced the winners of its 2017 Beamline for Schools competition. “Charging Cavaliers” from Canada and “TCO-ASA” from Italy were selected from a total of 180 teams from 43 countries around the world, adding up to about 1500 high-school students. The winners have been selected to come to CERN in September to carry out their own experiments using a CERN accelerator beam.

With the Beamline for Schools competition, high-school students are enabled to run an experiment on a fully-equipped CERN beamline, in the same way that researchers do at the Large Hadron Collider and other CERN facilities. Students had to submit a written proposal and video explaining why they wanted to come to CERN, what they hoped to take away from the experience and initial thoughts of how they would use the particle beam for their experiment. Taking into consideration creativity, motivation, feasibility and scientific method, CERN experts evaluated the proposals. A final selection was presented to the CERN scientific committee responsible for assigning beam time to experiments, who chose two winning teams to carry out their experiments together at CERN.

“The quality and creativity of the proposals is inspiring. It shows the remarkable talent and commitment of the new generation of potential scientists and engineers. I congratulate all who have taken part this year; they can all be proud of their achievements. We very much look forward to welcoming the two winning teams and seeing the outcome of their experiments,” said CERN Director for International Relations, Charlotte Warakaulle.

“Charging Cavaliers” are thirteen students (6 boys and 7 girls) from the “École secondaire catholique Père-René-de-Galinée” in Cambridge, Canada. Their project is the search for elementary particles with a fractional charge, by observing their light emission in the same type of liquid scintillator as that used in the SNO+ experiment at SNOLAB. With this proposal, they are questioning the Standard Model of particle physics and trying to get a glimpse at a yet unexplored territory.

“I still can’t believe what happened. I feel incredibly privileged to be given this opportunity. It’s a once a lifetime opportunity It opens so many doors to a knowledge otherwise inaccessible to me. It represents the hard work our team has done. There’s just no words to describe it. Of course, I’m looking forward to putting our theory into practice in the hope of discovering fractionally charged particles, but most of all to expanding my knowledge of physics.” said Denisa Logojan from the Charging Cavaliers.

“TCO-ASA” is a team from the “Liceo Scientifico Statale "T.C. Onesti"” in Fermo, Italy, and comprises 8 students (6 boys and 2 girls). They have taken the initiative to build a Cherenkov detector at their school. This detector has the potential of observing the effects of elementary particles moving faster than light does in the surrounding medium. Their plan is to test this detector, which is entirely made from low-cost and easily available materials, in the beam line at CERN.

“I'm really excited about our win, because I've never had an experience like this. Fermo is a small city and I've never had the opportunity to be in a physics laboratory with scientists that study every day to discover something new. I think that this experience will bring me a bit closer to my choices for my future” said Roberta Barbieri from TCO-ASA team.

The first Beamline for Schools competition was launched three years ago on the occasion of CERN’s 60th anniversary. To date, winners from the Netherlands, Greece, Italy, South Africa Poland and the United Kingdom have performed their experiments at CERN. This year, short-listed teams2 each receive a Cosmic-Pi detector for their school that will allow them to detect cosmic-ray particles coming from outer space.

“After four editions, the Beamline for Schools competition has well established itself as an important outreach and education activity of CERN. This competition has the power to inspire thousands of young and curious minds to think about the role of science and technology in our society. Many of the proposals that we have received this year would have merited an invitation to CERN.”, said Markus Joos, Beamline for School project leader.

Beamline for Schools is an education and outreach project supported by the CERN & Society Foundation, funded by individuals, foundations and companies.

The project was funded in 2017 in part by the Arconic Foundation; additional contributions were received by the Motorola Solutions Foundation, as well as from National Instruments. CERN would like to thank all the supporters for their generous contributions that have made the 2017 competition possible.

Beamline for schools 2018 is confirmed: you can already find information here.

Further information:

Team “ TCO-ASA ”: Extract from their proposal “In BL4S 2016 the proposal of our school received the status of highly commended, which really intrigued us. The basic idea is to achieve an authentic detector by using some simple instruments. We wanted to study the Cherenkov’s effect that is radiation emitted when a charged particle passes through a dielectric medium at a speed greater than the phase velocity of light in that medium. […]This year we made a new box with new sensors and we started the tests on the Cherenkov’s effect from the beginning. Our research gave us satisfying results with which we hope to win the BL4S 2017 competition. […]”

Watch their video

Team “ Charging Cavaliers ”: Extract from their proposal “Generally, the idea that electric charge exists in integer multiples of electron charges is well supported by the scientific community. Be that as it may, the Standard Model, which includes three generations of quarks and leptons, does not establish charge quantization. To be able to enforce charge quantization, physics beyond the limits of the Standard Model is imperative. […] Our experiment will search for fractionally charged particles using proton interactions at the Proton Synchrotron with the goal of identifying fractionally charged particles by observing their light emission in a liquid scintillator, comparatively to a conventionally charged particle. […] It is our duty to encourage the pursuit of knowledge, and beginning with this privileged occasion would only advocate for this cause. We must think forward, and this would be our first big step toward doing so.”

Watch their video

1. CERN, the European Organization for Nuclear Research, is one of the world's leading laboratories for particle physics. The Organization is located on the French-Swiss border, with its headquarters in Geneva. Its Member States are: Austria, Belgium, Bulgaria, Czech Republic, Denmark, Finland, France, Germany, Greece, Hungary, Israel, Italy, Netherlands, Norway, Poland, Portugal, Romania, Slovakia, Spain, Sweden, Switzerland and United Kingdom. Cyprus and Serbia are Associate Member States in the pre-stage to Membership. India, Pakistan, Turkey and Ukraine are Associate Member States. The European Union, Japan, JINR, the Russian Federation, UNESCO and the United States of America currently have Observer status.

2. A.O.C group from Israel Absolute Uncertainty from the United Kingdom Beamcats from the Philippines Bojos per la Física 2017 from Spain Brazinga from Brazil Cherenkov Radiation Busters from Poland Club de Física Enrico Fermi from Spain CURIEosity Team from Greece Dawson Technicolor from Canada Deep Impact from Chile DITI - Deep In The Ice from Poland G-Y-V-V Amavet 964 from Slovakia Hildebrandianer from Germany LEAM TEAM - Learning About Materials Team from Timor-Leste Newton's apples from Spain Pigeon Detectors from the United Kingdom P.R.O.ME.THE.U.S from Italy Q=MC² from the United Kingdom Salty Brits from the United Kingdom Sparticles Particles 2.0 from the United States Surfing the Wave Function from the United States Team Hephaestus from India Team Muonicity from India Terrella from New Zealand THE BIG BANG TEAM from Italy United World Astronauts from the Netherlands Vacuum Dunes from Spain Y=GC2 from the United Kingdom