After seven successful editions, CERN Beamline for Schools 2021 is ready to start. This physics competition offers high-school students the unique opportunity to conduct a physics experiment in a leading research laboratory. Beamline for Schools has become very popular over the past seven years, with more than 11000 students participating in it.
The competition is open to teams of at least five students, 16 years and older, with at least one adult supervisor, or “coach”. If you want to take part in it, think of a simple, creative experiment and submit a written proposal (up to 1000 words) and a short video proposal (1 minute) by April 15, 2021. It is a challenging task but do not be afraid, get inspired by previous editions’ proposals and do not hesitate to get in touch with us or with the contact person in your country or region.
Every year, two teams are selected by a committee of experts and win the opportunity to perform their experiments at a particle physics facility. In 2021, the CERN test-beam area is still under scheduled maintenance and the experiments will be performed at DESY, in Hamburg, Germany. DESY is a world-leading accelerator center and Germany’s national laboratory for particle physics, accelerators and photon science. It offers particle beams and infrastructure that allow for a very wide range of experiments in particle physics, detector development, and multidisciplinary science. Find out more about DESY’s beamline and facilities at http://cern.ch/bl4s.
How to participate:
December 2020 – Registration Opening
Register your team name, country and coach’s contact details to start receiving
email updates. Do not worry, you are not expected to have a proposal idea yet.
15 April 2021 – Submission Deadline
Submit your written proposal and video (both in English only) by midnight CET.
Note that the video is not mandatory.
June 2021 – Winners Announcement
CERN and DESY will announce the winners, who will travel to DESY to perform
their experiments, as well as the 20-30 short-listed teams.
September/October 2021 – Experiment Time at DESY
The exact date will be announced according to the accelerator schedule.
Useful contacts: Experienced scientists from different countries have offered to help the
teams in their native language, you can find a list here: https://cern.ch/bl4s/bl4scompetition/national-contacts
If your country is not in the list, do not hesitate to contact us at: bl4s.team
Prizes: all participants will receive a certificate. The members of the short-listed teams will receive a T-shirt and each team in this list will win a special prize, that could be a portable particle detector. The winning teams will be invited for 10-15 days to DESY to perform their experiments. Up to nine members and two coaches can attend the event, which is free of charges.