A team of Japanese high school students called Sakura Particles has become the first group from Japan to have their science experiment accepted at CERN, the world’s largest accelerator facility in Geneva, Switzerland. Supported by Accele Kitchen, LLC, these talented students from Joshigakuin Senior High School, Kawagoe Girls High School, Kitano High School, Kawawa High School, and Junten High School designed a homemade cosmic ray imaging detector. Their project aims to advance muography—a technique that uses high-energy particles from space to peer inside large structures on Earth.
Despite being a high school team, they created a low-cost detector that tracks the path of muons (a type of particle). This remarkable achievement earned them a spot in the 2024 Beamline for Schools competition, where they were selected from 461 teams worldwide. Their selection marks the first time Japanese students at this level will conduct experiments at a major facility like CERN.
The team will test their detector at CERN with the assistance of scientists, using an artificial muon beam to simulate cosmic rays moving at nearly the speed of light. Red Pitaya’s data acquisition system will play a crucial role in capturing and analyzing the results during these experiments.
To learn more about how Red Pitaya supports Sakura Particles' research, click here.