(Almost) the whole world represented in BL4S
On 31 March 2017 the submission period ended for the fourth Beamline for Schools competition. In total, 180 teams have sent a proposal for their experiment to CERN.
The proposals have rained in from 43 countries across all 5 continents. The most proposals were received from Turkey, with an impressive 26 submissions, followed by Italy and the UK with 18 teams each. Proposals submitted by teams from Timor-Leste, American Samoa, Bolivia, New Zealand and South Africa show that BL4S excites and encourages students from all over the globe with particle physics and the work done at CERN.
The huge effort and amount of work done by the 1470 students who participated is remarkable, and it is overwhelming to see the time and energy invested by some of the teams. On average, teams spent around 40 hours learning about CERN’s science, coming up with an idea and building their proposal, and many spent over 100 hours perfecting their experiment design.
We are also delighted this year to see that one third of the students are female – physics is not just for boys!
As in previous years, more than 40 experts will now carefully evaluate all the proposals for their feasibility but also the creativity of the video and the students’ motivation. In addition to selecting the two happy teams that will be invited to CERN in September the referees will also nominate 30 shortlisted teams to win a CosmicPi and BL4S t-shirts.
The winners of all prizes will be announced by an official press release in June.
Find out more on CERN's Students and Educators Webpage.