American Nuclear Society
Building Simulations and Demos for the BYU student chapter
Helping out with the BYU chapter of American Nuclear Society has been great. So far, I’ve organized and hosted the opening social, attended a few symposiums, toured some nuclear facilities, and met with some really cool professionals. I’m currently learning OpenMC, designing and building cloud chambers and other classroom demos, building an easy-to-use interactive Monte Carlo neutron transport simulation, and serving in educational outreach.
I started out by using a python library called fissionmunk for its simplicity, but it was too simple. I then decided to build my own interaction handler using actual neutron cross-section data from the NNDC's EDNF library. That was a much bigger step up in complexity than I had expected.
An electrostatic ping-pong ball accelerator; the early prototype made from scraps, and later, the full thing.