Matt was voted the winner of the Measurement Zone in 2012. Since then he’s been busy developing his project, and here he reports on his progress.

If you’re an engineer who’d like the funding to develop your own outreach activities apply for I’m an Engineer at imanengineer.org.uk/engineer-apply.

The money was used to buy a LEGO EV3 Mindstorms Educational set to take part in an educational outreach program run by some colleagues at Diamond Light Source. We’ve developed designs for a fully working diffraction interferometer made from the Mindstorms kit, but we needed the newest version of the LEGO to help test the current designs and develop them further.

Here are some pictures of the current model and a few of its immediate predecessor in various states of completion and use.

We’ve already been able to take the model out and about to show the public, including open days at the Rutherford Appleton Laboratory and even to the Natural History Museum.

We also plan to produce a fully illustrated booklet for schools which will include instructions on how to build their own version of the beamline model, as well as information about its real-life counterpart at Diamond, and the part it plays in synchrotron science and the modern world.

The booklet is, however, currently proving a challenge; Whilst the free software provided by Lego for modelling builds is good as far as it goes, its system for producing instructions falls over somewhat when faced with something as complex as the beamline. I’m hard at work on ways to make everything simple and clear without having to hand draw every stage in crayon!