FIT weekly report (Week 2)
What did you do this week?:
This week I recorded the muon counts along with the daily ozone levels in the immediate area in order to see if there was any sort of correlation between the two. The amount of ozone stayed pretty constant as did the muon counts. Another experiment that the entire group held was having a plasma globe plugged in right next to the collector paddles to see if it deflected any of the muons with it's electric field. The counts that we were getting dropped by half when it was plugged in, but we believe this is because it was deflecting the noise (electrons and other smaller particles) instead of the more massive muons.
Our group was also able to get our username and password in order to try uploading data onto the Quarknet site. We ran several muon counts, one of them being overnight, and were able to upload them onto the website. I was able to use the performance and flux study feature on some previous and current data uploads.
Why did you do that?:
We conducted the different experiments because we wanted to see what could effect the muons besides just the normal tests like temperature and solar storms. Ozone was the main thing that my science project was based on last year, so that's why I conducted that experiment on my own. The entire group shared an interest in conducting the plasma globe experiment, so that's why we all did it together.
What are you doing next?:
Next, I will still be collecting data on ozone and the muon counts Monday through Friday, in order to get a larger sample size for the experiment. I will also be conducting the plasma globe experiment with my group. During this we will occationally be uploading data onto the Quarknet website. These uploads might even be from overnight again.
Why are you doing that?:
We are doing that in order to better understand muons and how they respond to the outside world.