Florian M. Brunbauer

Working in a great team on a fun and interesting project, while hearing lectures about various fields of physics and engineering from renown experts and visiting the world’s most advanced high energy physics experiments – a perfect recipe for an unforgettable summer! I arrived in late June unsure what my actual project will be like and how I will spend three whole months here. When I presented some of my earlier work and hobbies at our first group meeting, my supervisor noticed that I enjoyed working with electronics and prototyping and from then on, that was exactly what I got to do. I got to tailor the project to my specific interests and before long we had a prototype manufactured. In the following weeks, we hope to take advantage of the system I developed to control an experiment and I cannot wait to have it tested and employed in the lab. While I learned a lot during this first part of the project, I also got to work on gaseous particle detectors (GEMs). After all, I was in a detector development group and although I had no prior experience with detectors at all, I have come to appreciate the possibilities and details of these detectors over the summer. I cannot image a better place than CERN where these very detectors where invented to get to know this technology and it has proven to be an extremely valuable time here. To top it all off, I also got to assemble a huge vacuum chamber and test detectors inside of it. Summing up, it has been a great summer so far. I have seen countless new things, learned about technologies I did not know before and enjoyed my time at the largest physics laboratory of the world. It is a great environment to work in and it makes me proud to be (at least a small) part of such a great scientific effort.

Found the programme online, sounded like a great experience and I was not disappointed.

I developed an online connected monitoring and control system, while also working on assembling and testing a vacuum chamber in a gaseous detector development group.

Too be honest, I did not expect anything too specific. But it has been a great time here!