Behind the scenes: Working meeting at the 5th PI in Stuttgart

On 28 March 2025, another important working meeting of our QOOOL project took place - this time on the premises of the 5th Physics Institute in Stuttgart. In addition to intensive discussions and technical updates, there was one thing above all: an exciting outlook on an interactive learning environment for the QOOOL Kit!

The web simulator - QOOOL becomes a virtual experience

At the meeting, the senseBox team presented a live demo of the web simulator currently under development, which will make it possible to experiment virtually with both Fluoro and the upcoming magnetometer in the future - without any real hardware.

At the beginning there was a short introduction to Blockly for the senseBox as a graphical programming interface. Block-based programming makes it much easier to get started and offers the corresponding source code in addition to the visual structure. The programming environment has currently been expanded to include the QOOOL kit Fluoro, so that the senseBox is displayed as a microcontroller and the components of the Fluoro kit as 2D models. Users can observe and virtually try out various visual effects of fluorescence.

Progress in our laser setup

Another item on the agenda was the presentation of the laser setup. Particularly pleasing: the signals generated with it have improved significantly compared to previous measurements. An important milestone that shows that we are on the right track - and at the same time motivates us to tackle the next steps with even more vigour.

LED tests with diamonds

The LED setup was also presented, with which different LEDs and diamonds were tested. The results are promising - if you want to go into more detail, you will soon find a separate article with all the details.

Next goal: Microwave excitation of the diamond

We have also paved the way organisationally for the coming weeks: we have scheduled a separate working meeting on the microwave, at which we will focus even more intensively on this central component of our kit. An article with further insights will follow.

Conclusion:

The working meeting in Stuttgart not only advanced QOOOL technically, but also showed once again how important the didactic link is. We are really looking forward to the further development of the web simulator - and of course to everything that is yet to come!