There’s more to life than coding!
Control Sheet articles usually report on the large and challenging technical projects we participate in: Nuclear Accelerators, Particle Therapy, you name it. For this article, we take a very different angle and look at some very different kinds of projects we also have going on here at Cosylab.
To the roots
Cosylab started as a spin-off from Jožef Stefan Institute (IJS) in 2001. Earlier, around 1996 Our current CEO Mark Pleško, then a head of researchers at IJS, formed a group to develop a control system together with seven students. After successfully finishing their first project in 2000, a control system for an accelerator in Germany, they faced a dilemma — where to take it from there? Stay at the institute, or form an own company, specialized in accelerator controls? This is how Cosylab, Control System Laboratory, came to be.
The company grew out of the academia and the scientific community, and we feel strongly about giving back to it. We think that one of the best ways is by inspiring young people to become interested in science, technology, engineering and mathematics (STEM), and show them that careers in these fields are worth pursuing.
Inspiring the youngest
Which is why we have been sponsoring The house of experiments [1] for many years. The museum gives children a hands-on experience and a chance to learn about science through all sorts of fun experiments.
Every June, the museum also organizes »Znanstival« [2], a science festival which takes place on streets, bridges and town squares of Ljubljana. And sure enough, we’re there as well.
This year, we’ve built our very own medical accelerator, and the controls for it too.
Supporting the young
This year, Slovenia hosted the 16th European Union Science Olympiad (EUSO) [3], where 156 young scientists, aged 16 years or younger, from 52 teams and 25 EU countries competed in solving interdisciplinary assignments in natural sciences — biology, chemistry and physics.
We’re proud to say that we were one of the sponsors.
And we’re even more proud to say that we also have a fair share of International Physics Olympiad medalists working here at Cosylab: out of 7 silver medalists from Slovenia, 4 are, or were, our coworkers.
Teaching the old(er)
CosySchool [4] is just one of the projects that sprang from the company and also takes place in our offices. For the second time in a row, we are organizing a summer school for STEM students and young graduates.
Last year, their assignment was easy enough. 36 participants were given 6 mentors and 3 days to make a Treatment Control System (TCS) model, controlling a laser rather than a proton beam.
The students were divided into two teams; one learnt the basics of EPICS, which they used to analyse the picture acquired by the camera and deliver the »dose«. The second group took on LabView, with which they controlled the laser and its positioning.
Did they manage? With a little help from Cosy friends, sure enough, they did.
Stay tuned on Twitter and Facebook to see how this year’s students will fare with their challenge.
Know of a project we could support? Let us know!
REFERENCES
[1] House of experiments, http://www.he.si/
[2] Znanstival, http://www.znanstival.si/
[3] EUSO 18, https://www.euso2018.si/home/
[4] CosySchool, https://www.cosylab.com/news/summer-school/
This article equally appears in issue no. 35 of our newsletter Control Sheet
