Howard Matis designed Cosmic Ray Coincidence Detector
constructed by Eric Muhs
with assistance from Evan Campbell, Jake Van Dusen, Jeremy Houk, and Tom Dunnam of Seattle Academy of Arts & Sciences
All the good carpentry by Jim Madsen of University of Wisconsin - River Falls
Electronics troubleshooting by Hans-Gerd Berns of the University of Washington Dept of Physics, and Austin Watson
PMTs were donated by Thomas Jordan, for QuarkNet & Fermilab, US Dept of Energy
Circuit board & analog chips donated by Howard Matis.
Much of the cost was defrayed by a NASA mini-grant.
Parts list with DigiKey parts numbers (excel spreadsheet)
Another page with more detector pictures
and details (this site)
Experiment Ideas:
Count Rates at different altitudes
Count Rates outside vs inside buildings vs basements
Count rates when detectors are placed side by side and moved further apart
Count rates when detectors are stacked and moved further apart
Count rates when shielding is placed between detectors
Count rates when stacked detectors are aimed at different parts of the sky and/or the sun
Count rates at different times of day
Count rates vs air pressure
Count rates and radioactive sources
1) Send it to Pennsylvania with TEA Jason Petula, to take to Sweden with TEA Mats Petterson (these 2 teachers went to the South Pole last year to work on a cosmic ray experiment.
2) Use it as a classroom demo
3) Reproduce Victor Hess' balloon flight discovery of cosmic rays using a hot-air balloon.
4) Calibrate against other local detectors and take it to the South Pole this winter (I'm going !)
5) Put it on a NASA high-altitude balloon flight with environmental probes next summer.