This physics competition offers high-school students the unique opportunity to conduct a physics experiment in a leading research laboratory. Beamline for Schools has become very popular over the past eight years, with more than 13000 students participating in it.

The competition is open to teams of at least five students, 16 years and older, with at least one adult supervisor, or “coach”. If you want to take part in it, think of a simple, creative experiment and submit a written proposal (up to 1000 words) and a short video proposal (1 minute) by April 15, 2022. It is a challenging task but do not be afraid, get inspired by previous editions’ proposals and do not hesitate to get in touch with us or with the contact person in your country or region.

Every year, two teams are selected by a committee of experts and win the opportunity to perform their experiments at a particle physics facility. In 2022, the experiments will be performed at the testbeam facility of the Proton Synchrotron (PS) accelerator at CERN. It offers particle beams and infrastructure that allow for a very wide range of experiments in particle physics, detector development, and multidisciplinary science. Find out more about the beamline and the facilities available for the competition at http://cern.ch/bl4s.

How to participate:

• December 2021 – Registration opening

Register your team name, country and coach’s contact details to start receiving email updates. Do not worry, you are not expected to have a proposal idea yet.

• 10 January 2022 – Opening of proposal submission

• 15 April 2022 – Submission deadline

Submit your written proposal and video (both in English only) by midnight CET. Note that the video is not mandatory.

• June 2022 – Winners announcement

CERN will announce the winners, who will travel to CERN to perform their experiments, as well as the teams that will receive special prizes.

• End of September 2022 – Experiment time at CERN.

The exact date will be announced according to the accelerator schedule.

Useful contacts: Experienced scientists from different countries have offered to help the teams in their native language, you can find a list here: https://cern.ch/bl4s/bl4s-competition/national-contacts

If your country is not in the list, do not hesitate to contact us at: bl4s.team@cern.ch

Prizes: all participants will receive a certificate. The best 20/30 proposals will be awarded with special prizes, that will be delivered at their home institutions. The winning teams will be invited for 10-15 days to CERN to perform their experiments. Up to nine members and two coaches can attend the event, which is free of charges.

Register now at: http://cern.ch/bl4s 

The Beamline for Schools Competition is an education and outreach project funded by the CERN & Society Foundation, you too can contribute by supporting the programme with an online donation.