![]() “Feynman diagrams are a really great way of understanding the Standard Model without having to know any maths or any quantum mechanics,” explains Day. Rather, they went on to produce a suite of interactive Feynman diagrams, which can be accessed in a web browser and can also be used as a learning tool. Of course, this being a webfest, the team weren’t satisfied with merely creating a brand-new infographic to revolutionise the way the most fundamental concepts in modern physics are taught. ![]() Instead, the group sought to make their infographic as informative as possible, with additional information about each particle contained within each cell – along the lines of the periodic table of elements. Francesca Valery Day, one of the students who worked on this project explained that the team was aiming to “explain the Standard Model from the beginning in an intuitive order for someone who doesn’t know any maths or physics, in a way that’s fun and interactive”. However, the project went much further than simply adding a slot for the Higgs boson to the usual representations of the Standard Model. This project was inspired by the announcement of the discovery of a particle consistent with the Higgs boson on 4 July. Other highlights from the weekend include an Android-based cosmic ray detector, which you can read about in detail here, and an attempt to create a standard infographic for the Standard Model (pictured right). The Standard Model infographic developed at the webfest. “Each of the designs reflects the actual behaviour of the particle represented – it’s really amazing.” “These beautiful graphics were the real inspiration behind the project,” explains Alejandro Avilés, who goes by the pseudonym ‘OmeGak’ online. Each of the particles have had charming sprites created for them by graphic designer André-Pierre Olivier and when you encounter them in the game they’ll even tell you a little bit about themselves. In the current version of the game, which was modified after the event, players have to help find the Higgs boson among a croweded zoo of particles. ParticleQuest, which can be played online here, is a hack of Mozilla’s new open-source game BrowserQuest. The ParticleQuest team members selected Alejandro Avilés to go to the Mozilla Festival in London in November. ![]() However, the highlight of the event was the ParticleQuest game, which was selected by a panel of judges as the weekend’s overall winning project. Projects dreamt up by the students included a browser-based dashboard for the Large Hadron Collider (LHC), a new CERN open-data initiative, and a virtual world for the platform. ![]()
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