Question: On your profile is a picture of 1 of the 6 particle detectors you built for the project in Japan. How long did they take to build and how well are they working in the ND280?

Daniel Scully answered on 15 Nov 2011:

The first one took about 2 months to build, we didn’t have the designers or electronics experts around to guide us, so we were very much finding our way as we went along.

But as we built more the process got more and more organised until it was only taking 1 month for each detector! Of course it was more important to be careful and make sure everything was tested than rushing them out. But I was quite proud that we finished ahead of schedule!

They’re working very well now, thanks. When the experiment is running they’re detecting particles all the time, and people are now working on getting their information into our physics measurements.

They’ve also survived a water leak (while they were being shipped out there) and the magnitude 9 earthquake which hit Japan last March, so they’re pretty hardy!