Workshops
The 5-day workshops included:
Let Us “Smash” Some Protons
Instructors: Laura Havener, Isaac Mooney
What makes up matter? What are the smallest particles? Smash protons with electrons in computer simulations and study the wreckage to find the answers—just like physicists do at particle colliders!
Hello, Quantum World!
Instructors: Yu He, Kirsty Scott
Through physical demonstrations, interactive experiments, challenges, and a little math, you will discover the wonders of the quantum world—a world made of molecules, atoms, light, and waves!
Physics Demonstrations: Make Words about Science Go Better
Instructors: Caitlin Hansen, Stephen Irons, Paul Noel, Gregory Penn, Emily Pottebaum
Develop your science communication skills through exciting hands-on physics demonstrations and creative presentations. Learn to solder and build your own tabletop physics demos—a light-up photosensor badge and an LED rainbow that converts mechanical to electric energy! Team up with other students to create fun skits that bring large-scale physics demos to life. Plus, you’ll contribute to the Yale Physics Lecture Demonstrations repository by developing outreach materials that inspire future learners.
The Physics of Light
Instructors: David Moore, Jackie Baeza-Rubio, Aaron Markowitz, Siddhant Mehrotra, Molly Watts, Sierra Wilde
For all of us who can see, we experience light and color every moment. But what are they? We will explore light’s visible and invisible properties, and how these properties enable technologies from lasers to smart phones.
Enrichment Sessions
The 1.5-hour enrichment sessions included:
Discover the Invisible Universe at Wright Lab
Instructors: Eunice Beato, Katarina Andrade, Nathan Burns, Cameron Jensen, Mike Jewell, Seraphim McGann, Kylie Mirra, Victoria Misenti
Description: Pathways students learn how Wright Lab researchers can make the invisible visible, with hands-on activities using detectors like Wright Lab scientists do in their research, while interacting with scientists and learning the processes of experiment, observation, data-taking, and analysis. Wright Lab researchers explore the frontiers of science, investigating dark matter, neutrinos, how matter is made and interacts, quantum phenomena, the beginnings of the Universe, and more! Specific activities this year addressed making sound and heat visible, changing resonances, and energy transfer in a cavity; as well as a brief tour of Wright Lab.
Discover the Invisible Universe photos
RHIGscape Escape Room: Particle Collider Control Room
Instructors: Laura Havener, Isaac Mooney, Morgan Kneusel, Sierra Cantway, Andrew Tamis
Description: Imagine you are an experimental physicist working at the Large Hadron Collider and you are on shift in the control room, but something goes wrong! Students will learn what it is like to run these large collider experiments while having fun solving puzzles with their classmates.
Mini Physics Olympics
Instructors: Caitlin Hansen, Paul Noel, Gregory Penn, Emily Pottebaum
In this 60-minute session, students competed in a miniature version of the annual Yale Physics Olympics. Participants teamed up to estimate the number of marbles in a tube with the power of more marbles and smaller tubes, and approximated values of important physical quantities (such as the end-to-end length of the annual amount of spaghetti noodles consumed in the United States) in a Fermi quiz.