The next generation of experts in trigger and data acquisition gather at ISOTDAQ2016
Fifty-two MSc and PhD students from 21 countries, selected from almost 80 applications, attended ISOTDAQ 2016, the seventh International School of Trigger and Data Acquisition, which was held at the Weizmann Institute of Science in Rehovot, Israel.
Fifty-two students were selected to attend the ISOTDAQ 2016 school.
As in previous years, a packed programme was provided, with as much time devoted to lectures as to hands-on exercises, with the aim of giving the students an introduction to the many concepts and technologies used in the field. A total of 26 lecturers and tutors from CERN, research institutes worldwide and industry came to the school to share their knowledge, not only during the lectures and laboratory exercises but also in numerous face-to-face discussions during the coffee and lunch breaks.
The lectures covered enabling technologies such as FPGAs, A/D converters, networks and bus systems, as well as software design, and overviews of selected TDAQ systems from large and small experiments and related fields such as medical imaging.
In the lab exercises, the students had the opportunity to operate the hardware introduced to them in the lectures and to work, under the supervision of an experienced tutor, on small projects. To make the hands-on experience possible, 500 kg of electronics modules and computers, prepared for the 13 exercises, were shipped from CERN to the Weizmann Institute.
During the school, the students also had an opportunity to visit the production facility for a large fraction of the existing AtlasTGC detectors and the future sTGC detectors for the ATLAS Phase 1 upgrade. This gave them an idea of the research activities and the facilities available at the Weizmann Institute’s Physics department.
by Markus Joos
