Today was a wonderful day. The host site for SNOLAB, the Creighton Mine, ran its Family Day events this afternoon. Food, a tour of mine equipment, games, music … and science! SNOLAB was part of the festivities, and the lab came together to share wonder and discovery with the mothers, fathers, grandparents, and kids who were on site today.
I was grateful for the chance to help out in our quiet room, which was also host to science games and displays. I setup a cryogen-free cloud chamber that I built with a student from Manitoulin who worked with me at SNOLAB this past summer.
The Education and Outreach teach also setup a Cosmic Ray Cube, capable of showing the 3-D passage of cosmic ray muons as they come from the sky and enter the earth. They had a puzzle showing the make up of the universe (matter, dark matter, and dark energy), as well as a lattice of tennis balls and springs that mimic a crystal structure. You can throw bean bags at the lattice as if they are dark matter particles hitting atoms in a crystal, the premise on which the SuperCDMS experiment is built.
There was even a small table with a stretchy sheet that could bend, like spacetime. A heavy object placed in the sheet causes it to warp, and you could toss marbles around the fabric to mimic planets and stars orbiting other things, like black holes.
We had lots of families come through the quiet room and check out the exhibits, relax on the couch, listen to mellow spacey music, and play with the interactive pieces. Outside the quiet room, members of the Education and Outreach, Scientific Support, and Research Groups made liquid nitrogen ice cream. In the next room over was a “build a circuit” play area.
My station was the cloud chamber display, where I showed off (and put through its shakedown cruise) a new prototype sold-state cloud chamber. The design comes from Siena College and was built this past summer. We had a small rock sample inside of it that just SANG alpha and beta particles into the alcohol vapour inside the small chamber. The bottom of the device gets to -30C in 60 seconds, while the top remains near room temperature. The chamber ran without stopped (except to wipe off condensation and refresh the alcohol supply) for over 3 hours. Not bad for a first day!
All in all, today was super fun. I hope the families of Greater Sudbury who could come today enjoyed a tiny taste of the fun we have and the science we do at SNOLAB.
