On 30 June, our science teachers Dr Mahmoud and Ms Kassir accompanied a group of our Year 10 and Year 12 students to the UCL main campus in Euston to take part in the final conference of the UCL’s ORBYTS educational programme.
Since January, our students attended a weekly enrichment club after school focused on the field of Quantum. They were supported by PhD students from UCL which guided and supported them throughout the project to enable them to take part in world-class research. After completing their research, the students created a poster to communicate their findings and presented this at the UCL conference, which was held in the Harrie Massey Lecture Theatre.
The UCL Orbyts programme ran for a duration of 5 months, where we had fortnightly sessions with PhD students Eleanor and RJ. During these sessions, we had the privilege of learning about quantum computers, how they work, and how we can programme our own algorithms (using python) which we could then test using IBM’s REAL quantum computers. How exciting!
By putting our problem-solving and teamwork skills to use, we set out on a mission to create 3 algorithms which worked much better than IBM’s current method in creating what is known as a ‘Bell state’. I think it is safe to say that our mission was a success! Not only did we achieve our primary goal, but we also learned about fascinating concepts such as ‘quantum superposition’ and ‘quantum entanglement’ which can be used to explain the phenomenon of Schrödinger’s cat!
At the end of our research, we were invited to UCL where we delivered a presentation to 100+ students from other schools. I had a wonderful time being able to present our brilliant work in the conference – it was a very exciting and new experience! Furthermore, I enjoyed seeing what topics the other school had researched, such as understanding how time works in a black hole and finding suitable materials for building lunar habitats.
A huge thank you to UCL, Eleanor and RJ, and our school for arranging such an enjoyable programme!
