Quantum Interactive

QOOOL Kit DIY Challenge

You are confident working with electrical components, programming comes easily to you, you are creative and can come up with your own experiments? You enjoy sharing knowledge and ideas with others? Ideally, you already own a senseBox:edu or would like to work with a senseBox during the challenge. If needed, we can provide the necessary senseBox-hardware. Are you interested in diving into quantum technology, especially quantum sensing, and sharing your experiment with others? Then apply for the QOOOL Kit DIY Challenge.

Who can participate?

Eligible participants are school classes, extracurricular learning groups, vocational training institutions, universities, teachers, private hobby makers, and retirees from Germany. Companies and research groups are not eligible to participate.

How long does the challenge run?

You have from June 1 to July 31, 2026 to set up your experiment and submit the documentation of your experiment to us.

What can you win?

In addition to having your project published on qoool-sensing.org under your name, the challenge also offers the opportunity to make your own ideas and projects visible within the QOOOL community as well as in the fields of quantum sensing, open hardware, digital education, and making — and to share them with others.

Among all successfully completed submissions, three prizes will also be awarded:

🥇 1st place: a senseBox:edu S2

🥈 2nd place: a senseBox:basic

🥉 3rd place: a senseBox:basic

However, the main focus of the challenge is the exchange of creative ideas, open experiments, and new applications related to quantum sensing and open-source technologies.

How the challenge works:

If you are selected as a participant for the challenge, you will receive one of ten QOOOL Kit DIY kits free of charge.

It contains an LED with a microdiamond and microwave resonator, as well as a photodiode with a color filter. You build a simple experiment on a breadboard. Allowed are experiments that use either quenching (fluorescence detection without microwave excitation) or ODMR (fluorescence spectroscopy with microwave excitation). You come up with an experiment around the QOOOL Kit DIY to detect magnetic fields and magnetic field changes and may use anything you have available, e.g. a 3D printer, hot glue gun, wood, your own measurement equipment, …

You document your setup and your experiment step by step with photos and images in such a way that it can be understood and reproduced by anyone. You then provide this documentation to us free of charge. We verify your setup and your experiment and subsequently publish it openly and free of charge for everyone on our project website qoool-sensing.org as Open Source, including the name of the original author — that is, you.

Have we sparked your interest? Then apply now for the QOOOL Kit DIY Challenge via email (challenge@qoool-sensing.org). Let us know what equipment and previous experience you have in electronics and programming and whether you already have a first rough idea for the implementation.