WALTA at U. of Washington / Seattle: School-Network Cosmic Ray Detectors

1. WALTA at U. of Washington / Seattle: School-Network Cosmic Ray Detectors Jeffrey Wilkes Dept. of Physics, U. of Washington/Seattle Washington Area Large-scale Time coincidence Array (UW/Seattle)

2. J Wilkes, Murdock Conference, 1/04 WALTA • School-network CR program in Seattle area, based at U.WA • Faculty: Toby Burnett, Jeff Wilkes, Rik Gran • Engineer/Wizard: Hans Berns • 3 MS students, 4 undergrads • Uses same hardware as CROP (recycled CASA counters plus Quarknet DAQ card) • Close collaboration between WALTA and CROP • Engineering and construction of custom electronics (including DAQ card development) • Similar activities and materials for teacher workshops • Approach differs from CROP in significant ways: • 1-week summer workshops, for teachers only • Teachers involve students as appropriate for their school • Part of physics class, or science club project, or extracurricular activity • Now including community colleges as well as high schools

3. J Wilkes, Murdock Conference, 1/04 Progress and status of WALTA • Summer workshop '01: 11 teachers trained and equipped with counters and NIM electronics • Summer '02: 7 new teachers/schools added • Summer '03: 10 teachers attended workshop to learn use of new Quarknet DAQ card (but only a few cards were available) • Winter '03: 3 new teachers join the program • Spring '04: DAQ cards received and distributed • Network data taking begins! • Current status: • 4 networked sites operating this summer • 3 high school sites + model site at UW • 3 additional sites expected to go online very soon • See http://www.phys.washington.edu/users/gran/WALTA/summary.html for coincidence data and status

4. J Wilkes, Murdock Conference, 1/04 13 14 18 6 15 4 8 9 12 10 1 11 5 17 16 2 3 Washington Area Large-scale Time coincidence Array (UW/Seattle) WALTA at U. of Washington Participating schools (as of 8/2003) • UW Physics Dept. • WALTA-2001 • Roosevelt HS • Issaquah HS • Liberty HS • Juanita HS • Skyline HS • Shorecrest HS • Tiger Mt. Comm. Sch. • Lakeside School • Redmond HS • Tolt MS • Puget Sound Adventist • WALTA-2002 • Nathan Hale HS • Meadowdale HS • Monroe HS • N. Kitsap HS • Newport HS • NW Yeshiva • Scriber Lake HS Online 6/04 Soon... See http://www.phys.washington.edu/~walta

5. J Wilkes, Murdock Conference, 1/04 Summer Workshops for Teachers Salvaged detectors are refurbished Welcome to the world of experimental physics! Teachers wonder why the data are not as expected...

6. J Wilkes, Murdock Conference, 1/04 How WALTA works • Each school site deploys 4 counters (60cm x 60cm) • trigger = any-2-of-4 coincident over-threshold signals • DAQ card buffers data from all 4 counters for several ms • Full event data are logged on classroom PC • GPS timestamp (+ ~20ns) allows comparison between sites • Student "shift worker" does ~ daily checks and file transfer • Current run is ended • Data file is closed, zipped and archived locally • File is transferred to UW via simple web form • New data run is started • UW students and faculty check all submitted data • run data reduction software • note possible indications of hardware trouble, etc • analyze detailed data including all pulse edges • Check for multi-site coincidences using GPS timestamps

7. J Wilkes, Murdock Conference, 1/04 Sample of online monitoring plots (UW site) coincidence rate for past month singles rates

8. J Wilkes, Murdock Conference, 1/04 Lessons learned • Hands-on element is important • demystifies "ultra-high energy cosmic rays" • Teachers jump at a chance to work on projects like Super-K and K2K • Can make significant contributions by supervising teams of undergrads! • It's hard to involve schools in large bureaucratic districts • Currently only 2 Seattle schools, all others are suburban or private • Small (or 1-school) systems lack those extra layers of management (who need to assert themselves) between teacher and decision-makers • We need additional sources of support for teachers • Many teachers want to spend summers working on WALTA • Longer-term support is critically needed • Every funding agency loves 'startups', nobody wants to 'sustain' • Fact of life in America: school districts/states have no money! • Avoid being too hi-falutin' • Teachers don't need to learn field theory to contribute (and benefit) • We can never give a full development that satisfies fellow professors • It's fun and useful to learn bits and pieces of physics

9. J Wilkes, Murdock Conference, 1/04 Example: Liberty HS physics teacher Mark Buchli Mark with 20" PMT display • Spent summer 02 at Super-Kamiokande helping rebuild the detector (funded by Murdock grant) • Supervised teams of undergraduate workers (to great relief of physicists!) Students prepping tubes for installation

10. J Wilkes, Murdock Conference, 1/04 WALTA Progress • Add 2-year college sites (Green River CC, DeVry Univ.) • Students have tech skills, can mentor HS groups • Involve undergrads and MS degree students at UW • Undergrad majors are required to do 'independent study' research • enthusiastic undergrads are a mainstay of the program • Evening MS degree program includes many teachers and industrial/government R&D techies who are interested in education • Two high school teachers currently writing WALTA materials for their MS degree projects • Get experienced teachers to mentor newbies • UW faculty cannot possibly guide a full-size WALTA array (~30 sites) • Probably will never have funds for full-time staff • Enthusiastic lead teachers can help less-confident new members • Developing web-based resources for trouble-shooting, exchanging tips and tricks, networking between school districts

11. J Wilkes, Murdock Conference, 1/04 WALTA Web resources • WIKI board, sample how-to