Code Crackin': Particle Graffiti


Fermilabyrinth Home - Getting Started - Project Summary - Site Index - Games

Playing the Game

In Particle Graffiti, students are physicists in a control room watching plots of data collected by the CDF Detector when protons and antiprotons collide in the Tevatron. Their job is to identify the particles (W, Z, Jets, and Junk events) before another event comes. These plots are the signatures of particles - "particle graffiti." They have one chance to answer and if they answer incorrectly they receive feedback on what the event was and how to recognize it. Anytime during the game they can click on the help button to get information on how to recognize the four types of events. Before they play the game, three screens introduce them to the game and provide a little background, namely that physicists have made precise measurements of the masses of the W and Z particles. Using the CDF detector and the D0 detector, scientists discovered the top quark, the last quark to be observed.  

The menu bar above appears at the bottom of the screen and displays the current score in Einstein Bucks. Students can click on "Double Your Bucks and Quit Particle Graffiti", described below under Doubling Your Bucks.

Scoring

Students play for Einstein bucks and receive a certificate indicating their score for the teacher. They see ten plots of events per game. They can play as many games as they like; the last game played is the one recorded on the certificate. There are three patterns of events available: (1 Z, 2Ws,3 Jets, 4 Junks), (1Z, 3Ws,2 Jets, 4 Junks), and (1Z, 1Ws,4 Jets, 4 Junks). The greater frequency of Junk events represents the fact that physicists must see lots of events before they actually find one of interest. A game consisits of one of these patterns. The order of the events is random and the software can pick from 20 Zs, 20 Ws, 30 Jets, and 25 Junk events. The student who plays the game with 3Ws and 2 Jets will have the potental of winning the most points. In the real world, one team of physicists may be lucky enough to have the collisions that create rare particles while another team might not. Nature is capricious!

Students start with 500 points so if they get every one wrong, they will get 250 Einstein Points. The number of points they win or gain for each particle is listed below. The maximum points possible with the pattern (1Z, 3Ws,2 Jets, 4 Junks) is 1300 point that can be doubled to 2600. They lose 50 points if they cannot identify the particle before the next event comes. A student would get 0 points if he played the game and for all of the ten events, he did not give an answer before the next event was displayed. Generally a new event comes every fifteen seconds.

Scoring for Particle Graffiti
 Particle Points Added if Correct Points Deducted if Incorrect
Z 150 25
W 100  25
 Jet 75  25
 Junk 50  25

Doubling Your Bucks

When students are done, they can click "Double Your Bucks and Quit Particle Graffiti". Besides doubling their bucks, they can print out their certificate and Einstein bucks. To double their bucks, they need to read two screens of background on what happens when a W particle is generated and how physicists plot this data in two forms- the CTC and lego plots. Then they see a CTC plot of a Z particle and have to identify which of two lego plots of a Z particle corresponds to the CTC plot. If they have done the Particle Graffiti classroom activity, they should be able to answer this question reasonably easily. They need to pay attention to where in degrees the pink towers appear in the two plots. Look at the pages they see, but don't try to answer the question on the last page because it will cause a Javascript error when accessed in this context. (Animation and Plots and CTC plot of a Z particle)

Printing Your Bucks and Certificate

Two windows are open when students go to print their bucks:

  • the instructions
  • the certificate and Einstein bucks

To print the Certificate and Einstein bucks, they need to select the window with the Certificate and select Print under the File menu of their browser. They should cut off the Einstein bucks and give the teacher the certificate so she can record their progress.

Diggin' Deeper

If students want to learn more about the W and Z particles or the CDF detector, they can follow the links in Diggin' Deeper. The W and Z particles are bosons and are responsible for the Weak Force, one of four forces (Gravity, Electromagnetism, Weak and Strong) that control how the particles interact.

 

Please email the program contact with your comments on the site.


Work on Fermilabyrinth sponsored by the Fermi National Accelerator Laboratory (disclaimer) Education Office and Friends of Fermilab and funded by the US Department of Energy and the North Central Regional Technology in Education Consortium (disclaimer), operated by the North Central Regional Educational Laboratory (NCREL).
Authors
Program Contact: Spencer Pasero - spasero@fnal.gov
Web Maintainer: ed-webmaster@fnal.gov

Last Updated: Nov. 10, 1998
/projects/labyrinth/teachers/part_graf_game.shtml