Greetings, my name is Nathaniel Chandra Harjanto, a summer student of CERN Summer Studentship Programme 2013 from Indonesia, a country in South East Asia. I am part of Indonesian student group consisted of 3 persons which become the first Indonesian students to participate in CERN programs as this is the first time our country join CERN program following the collaboration between ALICE experiment and Indonesia’s Research Ministry, National Educational Institute (DIKTI), and National Research Institution (LIPI) which will be established starting from mid-2013. Thus, as the first group ever to go to CERN, we carry a responsibility to become an envoy of the country to promote good relation between CERN and our country for the success of the incoming collaboration and also to set a good achievement here to promote our country standing among the other countries at CERN, so other fellow Indonesians may get a chance to be involved in summer student programme for the following years to come.

I have heard about CERN since my junior high school years. Physics and its applications have always been my favorite subjects. Especially, I liked the subject about time travel, teleportation, black hole, universe, big bang, etc. That’s why going to CERN is always becoming my dream. I never would have thought the opportunity came so early. On October 2012, I saw a post on Facebook group of my major’s student council, The Engineering Physics Student Council, about the opening of registration for CERN Summer Studentship Programme 2013 which will be closed on 31 January 2013. I am really excited for this, especially since I am still thinking about the company for practical work which all the students must do on summer holidays at June-August 2013. Even though, at that time, many other students thought that the chance would be very small to get accepted to a really prestigious research center such as CERN as our country is not to advance in the field of research. However, I don’t see any losses by trying to apply to CSSP. We only need to fill in the online registration form and send a copy of our CV. Somehow, I got a belief that I will be accepted, thus I haven’t registered to other company for practical work in case I didn’t get accepted on CSSP until the announcement of CSSP selection result. And it’s true, on the last week of April, I got the announcement that only 3 people from our country are accepted as summer students in CSSP, and furthermore, I am the only one among the three who got scholarship or financial assistance from CERN which according for my supervisor only available for 30 students among more than 200 students from around the world.  I am really excited to hear the news! It is the best thing I can ever imagine!

At my country, I am studying at Bandung Institute of Technology (ITB) on Engineering Physics major. Engineering Physics major is the combination between electrical engineering, mechanical engineering, material, energy, and physics. As we always heard about CERN as the most advanced research center in the world due to its cutting edge technologies in accelerators and detectors, my colleagues, professors, and me expecting that engineering would be the main activity in CERN. So the research would be based on engineering. But after coming here, it seems that we were wrong. The main research activities here involves computing and data analysis, while engineering is not the work being done by most people at CERN especially for summer students. As an engineering student, I am familiar with front-end instruments and electronics such as magnets, electrical networks, microcontroller, et cetera. However, on computing and data analysis, I have very little to no knowledge. So, it’s a new experience and field for me to learn.

As a summer student, I am being placed  in ATLAS experiment under the supervision of Gokhan Unel. My project is to create an Outreaching application in the form of simulation game that consisted of 2 parts. The first part of the game is LHC detector simulator. I have to make a game that simulates the process of particle collision, combination, decays in various parts of detector (Tracker, EM Calorimeter, Hadron Calorimeter, and Muon Chambers). The second part of the project is CERN experiment simulation game which is a strategy game similar to Farmville, however instead of managing farms, the player will manage CERN experiment facilities with abilities such as hiring personnel, upgrading detectors, adding instruments, making collaborations, and others. This is a collaboration project between ATLAS and LHCb. Before I knew about this project, I was only asked by my supervisor to learn about Objective-C a subset programming language of C for Apple. I initially thought that I will use it to program for data acquisition or other project that directly related to research activities at CERN. When, I know my project, first I was very disappointed as I didn’t get the chance for learning from the project that directly involving me to research at CERN, as making games can be done anywhere else, it doesn’t have to be at CERN. However, my project indeed have its advantages, which is that my project resulted in a product, unlike the data analysis which is not resulted in product. And also, because recently CERN’s increase its effort in Outreaching for educating people in the world about CERN and particle physics, through my project, I can contribute much to CERN.

For my project, as I didn’t have programming as my background, I have to learn from scratch. To tell you the truth, I haven’t even use Apple/Mac product before, so I need time to learn how to use it, next step is to learn Objective-C and the editor for Mac, Xcode. Objective-C have a really different display and syntax that C/C++, I am having difficulty in learning it. After the first 2 weeks, I found a library in Xcode, called cocos2d which people use to make games in iPhone. So starting from that time, I have to learn about cocos2d from scratch again. I think most of my time during the project, I spend it to learn many things (Objective-C, Xcode, Cocos2d, Box2d Physics Engine, Particle Physics in general as I have to understand particle physics in detail in order to make the game) therefore, the progress of the project is quite hard to be seen. As compared to the other students’ project such as data analysis which have clear objectives, on making the game project I wasn’t given any specific objective, CERN just expect me to learn about objective-C, however I set a target for myself to finish this project at least 50% and continue it after CSSP is done from my country. To further commit myself to this objective, I register my project to CERN Webfest as it would drive me to finish at least the working prototype of the game on the Webfest.

As for the facilities at CERN, actually I was surprised by the numbering of the building which seems random. It’s really hard to find specific building by relying on the order of building number. It’s also quite surprising that CERN’s building is like a normal building in my country, I was actually expecting a really high-tech building that similar to science-fiction movies. However, for the accelerators and detectors are indeed impressive. It’s the first time for me to see such large scale and very complicated instruments up close during the visits. The technology is indeed really advanced. I was really thrilled to see the instruments and hoping to work there because as an engineer, it’s my field of expertise and interests. Also, the work atmosphere at CERN is really different than what I thought. I thought that people working in experiment area would wear lab coats, gloves, boots, goggles, while the people working in office would wear formal shirt, trousers, coat, and tie with the strict and very rigid atmosphere. It turns out that the work atmosphere at CERN is really relaxing but productive. You can even wear T-Shirt and shorts for work. It is something that unlikely would be found in my country.

In my university, my main interest is actually in Medical Instrumentation. I am planning to continue the game project until it finished and at the same time picking up research in Medical Physics. I am especially interested in PET technology that is invented at CERN for further research. Yesterday, I have met with Professor Ugo Amaldi in private after the lectures and have talked with him about my interest in Medical Physics. He gave me a lot of guidance and I am really excited to be able to have the chance to meet with one of the most expert and famous person in Medical Physics, I could never dream of it.

Swiss summer is quite different than what I thought initially. I thought that it will be very hot and dry, turns out, there’s a lot of rain and the air is quite cold even though the sun shines so bright. However, it’s a nice weather, I personally like it. I usually take my weekend days to travel around Geneva, seeing tourist spots such as Jet D’Eau, Flower Clock, Jardin Botanique, St. Pierre Cathedral, and also various museums such as Museum of Arts and History in Old Town. I actually want to go around Schengen Area like Italy, Spain, Austria, Germany, and Netherlands, however, I haven’t found the right time to do that as the weekend only spans for 2 days and I have lectures and have to do projects on weekdays.

From my time as summer student at CERN, I will remember the experience to interact and socialize with students from around the world and new friends that I have met in here including the researchers who acts as the lecturer and supervisor, the work atmosphere and the visit to astounding detectors and accelerators facilities, and last but not least, the chance to meet with great physicist and engineer in science field such as Professor Ugo Amaldi. It’s a once in a lifetime experience that I surely won’t forget!